May 17, 2024 • 76 mins
Hello listeners! We have an incredibly special episode today with Patrick and Lindsey Y. This couple embodies the meaning of recovering together. Learn about Patrick's journey to recovery from substance abuse, how Lindsey has championed being a loved one to someone in recovery, and and how they continue to grow together each day.
This is one filled with guidance to help you navigate your recovery journey. Tune in to get inspired!
*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.
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Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
(00:00):
Hello listeners, thank you for tuning in today to the Strength and Recovery podcast.
(00:25):
We are in Monroeville, Pennsylvania, which is right outside of Pittsburgh.
Can I say that?
Would you call this a suburb of Pittsburgh?
I would call this Pittsburgh.
You would call this Pittsburgh.
That works too.
Nobody knows where Monroeville is.
I know Monroeville because I've been here a few times now and I am obsessed with Big
(00:49):
Rig BBQ.
If you're near Pittsburgh, if you're near Monroeville, Big Rig BBQ has, and we're not
sponsored, we just like food.
(01:11):
They have the best brisket grilled cheese.
I think that's my favorite.
If you're around on a Friday, they do a smoked wing special.
Fantastic.
Like buffalo wings?
They just do them smoke with like a little dry rub on them.
They're great.
Okay.
Well, thank you for that.
(01:32):
Now back to the podcast.
Thank you so much for joining us.
I'm joined today by Patrick Yarborough and his wife, Lindsay.
They both work at RCA Monroeville.
They're such an important part of the fabric here at RCA Monroeville.
I wanted you to hear their story.
(01:53):
Lindsay, I want to just start with you.
Tell us a little bit about what you do here.
So I'm the outpatient administrative assistant.
Been here almost three years and basically just provide administrative support to the
outpatient department here.
A lot of back end work, but also a lot of front of office, front of house work.
(02:18):
And I think you're under telling or underestimating the impacts you have on our outpatient patients
that come in every day.
And maybe they're here for PHP, which is five days a week and or intensive outpatient IOP,
which is three days a week.
(02:39):
And you greet them and you're just that steady force that they see every single day and you're
a big part of their experience.
So thank you for your work.
You also lead our family support group on Tuesday nights.
Can you tell us a little bit about that?
Yeah, so that is called team, Naklenin for teaching, encouraging, advocating, meeting.
(03:03):
And that, I mean, it'll be a lot of what I talk about here, just encouraging family members
to start their own recovery and just work on their own healing journey.
And that's every Tuesday, seven to eight PM.
And that is both face to face and virtual.
Awesome.
And I think it's interesting and we're going to talk about and one of the reasons why I
(03:26):
wanted to sit down with you both is because you both consider yourself in recovery and
you consider yourself in recovery from not drugs and alcohol, but life, right?
Yeah.
And you've done a lot of work as a family member and the main support person for your
(03:48):
loved one who's in recovery, right?
Can I say it that way?
Yeah, I think so.
And Patrick, tell us a little bit about what you do.
So yes, well, I'll say I've been with Recovery Centers of America here in Monroeville for
about two years.
I initially started as a case manager and I spent some time working with the insurance
companies and making sure that people were covered for their time with us.
(04:13):
But now my role and something I will say that I've been passionate about since I walked
in the door of RCAS and went in recovery is our Alumni Association.
I'm one of the alumni coordinators here at Recovery Centers of America in Monroeville.
And what I do is I just work to start building connections and relationships with our patients
(04:37):
as they come in for inpatient or whether they go directly to outpatient, I try to get over
there and just let them know early on that we are here to be a support for them.
We are here to invite them and encourage them to stay engaged with patients that are still
coming in through alumni meetings, through service opportunities in the community, as
(05:02):
well as just opportunities to get together and go to events and just know that it is
possible to have fun in sobriety and let them know that we will continue to be there for
them long after they've walked out the doors of our CA.
I think peer recovery has become a real buzzword in our community and peer mentorship just
(05:28):
in the medical field in general.
What does it mean to have a sit down time with someone who's been in your shoes who
understands what that patient is going through?
Talk a little bit about that relationship.
Yeah, in the recovery community you'll hear a lot about sharing your experience, strength,
(05:50):
and hope.
As somebody who's been in the grips of alcoholism and addiction myself and understanding just
how hopeless it feels to have all the desire in the world to do something different but
to just not know how to go about it and not even know how to take the first step, it's
so helpful to have somebody that can come in and share their story and I can immediately
(06:14):
connect to that and recognize that they've dealt with some of the same difficulties.
Now to some degree they're different, we're all individuals, we're all different people,
but at the core of it they really understand what it means to be trapped by this substance
(06:35):
use but then to see that something's different now, that they were like I was but something's
changed and then I can be encouraged to know that if whatever that is is working for them
then I can come alongside them and they can show me what they've done and they can pull
me out of it and there's hope in that.
So and just knowing that you have a support, someone you can reach out to that can talk
(07:01):
you through just life and knowing that you're not alone is something I always like to say.
We all recover in a vacuum, we have to do it with a group of individuals around us, people
that can come around us and support us and a lot of times, especially in early recovery
for me, that was somebody to love me when I wasn't ready to love myself.
(07:23):
And I think it becomes so important to, like you serve as a peer mentor to our families
because it's something you walked through Lindsay and you serve for patients and for
alums and there's something really powerful about not having to bring shame into that
(07:48):
relationship and it's the first time you're really meeting, maybe it's the first time
you're really meeting somebody who knows what that journey is like, knows what the, not
only the activity but the surrounding guilt and shame and stigma that people are walking
through.
(08:09):
How would you describe that?
Yeah, I think just, I mean for me it's a privilege to over basically the past five
years to share just what I learned through really hard times and to be able to share
that with family members.
(08:30):
Just the education and this idea of being in recovery is all stuff that I didn't have
and there were some mistakes I made early on that was just a lack of education.
And so being able to share that with family members and especially get them out of that
obsession of their loved one or another way of praising it as being addicted to their
(08:54):
addiction, giving them that hope in recovery for themselves as well.
Would you mind taking us back to what was early, tell me how you met and it was to start
there.
How'd you meet?
Yeah, we met at a tiny, tiny Bible college in upstate New York.
(09:19):
I had been a student there for a couple of years already and one of my best friends told
me that his cousin was coming up like the next year to start in classes there and he
said I'm really concerned about my cousin.
I don't know how he's going to do here because he's a recovering addict.
(09:40):
So I kind of like I knew of this guy that was coming up to campus.
Early Patrick was my brother's roommate for the first semester.
So a combination of being good friends with his cousin and then my brother's roommate
kind of got to know Patrick fairly quickly.
(10:00):
Well, yeah, very quickly.
We were dating within a month of the semester starting.
But yeah, so I had been warned about this guy, this addict that was coming.
But Patrick showed up.
He was a southern gentleman wearing bright colored polos and he just looked put together
(10:25):
and not knowing anything about addiction.
He didn't fit the stigmatized view of what I had of what an addict looks like.
So and aside from that, we had conversations early on about his history of addiction and
what that was like and just the change that he felt his restored faith was making at that
(10:50):
time.
But I even though I knew about his past, I never thought it was going to be in our future.
Did you have much experience in your upbringing?
No, zero experience in my upbringing.
I was quote unquote the good kid in high school and didn't party and didn't mess around with
(11:12):
anything.
So yeah, I had zero experience with addiction, alcoholism.
Yeah.
Yeah.
So you marry?
Was it a pretty short engagement, courtship?
We got married a year and a half from the day we started dating.
(11:32):
Yeah.
And so you get married.
How soon is it when you're going something feels not quite right?
I mean, actually the first summer we were married and this is something I mean, we can
laugh about a lot of this now, but you know, understand that this is he's almost to five
(11:56):
years and a couple of days he will be five years sober.
So this has been a long healing journey that now we can laugh about some of the insanity
that happened.
So the first summer we were married, I was being a good newlywed wife and decided to
organize his closet for him and found a bag of some herbal looking stuff.
(12:18):
And I think in my heart, I knew what it was, but I didn't want to believe what it was.
So when I confronted him, this is just the insanity of addiction.
He told me that it was a tincture for keeping his clothes fresh.
I thought, well, you know, some people had.
I know.
And I joke.
(12:39):
Again, we joke now.
And I say now, like when she was like, oh, okay, I was immediately just thinking, really,
you bought that.
Yeah.
And you know, people put lavender in their clothes.
And again, I knew, but I didn't want to believe it.
(13:00):
So and then things kind of progressed from there.
Patrick had the mindset of, well, or he told me anyways, I'm in, I was an addict, not an
alcoholic.
So I think it's okay for me to drink and not knowing anything about addiction.
Sure, that meets my needs.
So we drank casually together.
(13:20):
And they didn't, that wasn't a red flag for me, but into about two years or so into marriage,
you know, he worked at a fast food restaurant.
And afterwards he would go out with the guys for drinks.
And he started to get where he was coming back later and later and later, like four,
(13:44):
five a.m. or not at all.
And when I confronted him about that, this is where gaslighting comes in, making me question
my own reality.
When I confronted him, he said, well, you know, I feel like you're treating me like
someone I used to be and not who I am now.
(14:05):
And so because he kind of in his addiction dismissed it that way, I kind of, I dismissed
it myself because I thought, well, I'm just the one that's overreacting, I guess.
And what's going on with you during this time?
So I came from a community where I was very tied in to recovery fellowships.
(14:27):
I was working a strong program.
And I did, I had this idea that as I came up to Bible College, I didn't get tied back
into that recovery community in this new area.
And I was able to justify that by saying, well, everything about these programs is meant
to deepen your understanding of what your higher power is.
(14:51):
And I have that here.
And I'm learning the Bible.
I'm reading through all of these Old Testament stories about how God is faithful.
And I'm building my understanding of God.
And I have all of these friends around me that have the same relationship.
So I don't need the fellowship.
(15:12):
And that was my first big mistake.
So you stopped going to the meetings?
Stopped going to the meetings.
Relationship with sponsor?
At that point, no.
My sponsor, my last sponsor was back in South Carolina.
And I just, I had one friend that happened to be in recovery.
(15:33):
He was right across the hall from me in the dorms.
And we quickly became best friends, and I just started working a lot.
I was in school full time.
I was volunteering in the church we were attending.
And what I knew to be, initially, my perspective was, because of the work that I'm doing, growing
(15:57):
closer to God, He is allowing me to be of service in these ways.
We shifted, and my pride started coming back in, and it became, God, look at all the ways
I'm serving you.
And I wasn't able to catch that shift in myself, and that's where that fellowship would have
(16:20):
been so helpful.
Because these are people who have been there, have experienced it, and they could have called
me on it.
That peer to peer, like we know where this thing leads.
And it's things that they can say to me that I won't accept from anyone else in the world
because I'm stubborn and obstinate.
But when it comes from them, and I know the heart behind it because I've experienced what
(16:43):
they've experienced, I just can receive things better from that person.
And I didn't do it.
And...
So how long did you have, what was your sobriety time looking like when you...
I had about a year and three months.
And it was within a few months of getting there and getting into this schedule that
(17:06):
I remember the first time I had moved into an apartment by myself at the time.
And I remember sitting at home at night, and I was just kind of burnt out.
I was going nonstop most of the week.
And there was a corner store down the street, and I thought, you know what, God, look at
(17:27):
all the work that I'm doing for God.
He's freed me of this obsession.
He's freed me from all of this.
I can probably have a drink.
And I remember going down to the store and picking up like one 24-ounce beer and coming
home and sitting down and watching TV and drinking it.
And that was it.
And I said, well, I successfully drank it.
(17:51):
And gradually from that point on, even that was still during our engagement, it just kept
getting worse.
And every thought that I had went back to how I successfully did it that one time.
And that was always my focus.
And looking back now, I can look back and see that the truth of it is that I either focused
(18:21):
on controlling my drinking to the point that I was never able to enjoy it, or I gave in
and drank from a toilet and drank an excess out of control.
And those were the only two experiences that I really had in those periods of time.
When I was drinking casually with her, she's drinking its casual drinks.
But in my mind, the obsession is still there, but it's the opposite.
It's don't drink too much, don't drink too much, don't drink too much, you can't drink
(18:44):
too much, you can't know that.
And for the longest time, I think she had this understanding that I believed what I
was saying when I was saying I'm an addict.
Alcohol wasn't an issue, but the truth was that was already, that was the first of many
lives to come of me trying to protect this relationship with alcohol, with substances.
(19:10):
How soon do you know this is a problem for me?
Honestly, I didn't know that was a problem.
I didn't come to terms.
You didn't feel like I've relapsed right away.
Oh, okay.
That was something that I may have pushed out.
(19:31):
I think within about six months, I knew within myself that there was a problem with this
relationship, but the obsession was still there, and it wasn't.
This is problem drinking.
I know I'm living in a lie.
(19:51):
I'm hiding this from my friend who's in recovery.
I'm hiding this from a campus that's actually a dry campus, but here I am drinking in my
apartment.
And that was still a campus apartment.
That was there from the beginning, but I was still able to tell myself that I can get this
under control.
(20:12):
And then you leave the college and you start working in ministry, still leading this double
life?
Yeah.
At that point, actually near the end of our time, while we were in New York, I had started
using like THC pens, the vape pens, and by that point, I had admitted it to her and said
(20:38):
that while I'm using it for pain management and her anxiety, and she accepted that and
I guess to some extent allowed it even though she never really liked it.
But then we left New York.
We go down to Alabama, and there was actually a clear point where I said, okay, I'm going
to be working in ministry now.
(21:00):
I have to stop all of this.
And I think for about a month, I successfully did not do anything.
And then we closed on a house pretty shortly after that because, you know, we were thinking
very clear headed.
Here's me and an active alcoholism.
(21:21):
We just moved states away from any loved ones.
We've been here for a couple months to work with a church.
Let's buy a house.
A church.
Plants.
Plants.
Not in the established church.
Plants.
And then right after we bought the house, the alcohol came right back into the picture.
And within a couple months of that, we closed on that house in October.
(21:46):
And in December, my doctor, who I had just started seeing, put me back into a pain management
program for pain that I've always had.
That was the reason I started using opioids.
And he prescribed me about a hundred and twelve, ten milligrams of vitamin in a month, which
(22:08):
to the average person is a large amount of opioids.
But to me, who was already back in an addiction with alcohol and had a history of heroin use,
all that did was remind me of what I was missing.
It was just enough to scratch in it, but not enough to alleviate it.
(22:33):
And I remember fighting to take those prescriptions correctly, or at least try to wait long enough
after I took too many so it matched up.
Do you tell the doctor you have a history of substance use disorder?
The doctor did know about a past.
(22:55):
But I don't think I was a hundred percent right.
I was an ID heroin addict.
I said, I appreciate you, but I did screw something with that.
And it was so quick.
As difficult, and as I can look back and see the reality of the alcohol use through that time and how
(23:18):
problematic it was, there was no denial.
The problem, once the opioids were added back to it, I quickly lost control.
And this month, I successfully kept pills at least near the end of the prescription.
But quickly after that, it became I was out in two weeks.
(23:39):
I was out in two weeks again.
And then I would be the last month that I picked up that prescription.
That entire prescription was gone in four or five days.
What are you experiencing at this time?
I'm not sure.
I'm not sure.
(24:00):
I'm not sure.
I'm not sure.
I'm not sure.
I'm not sure.
I was a little bit.
I was a little bit.
I was a little bit.
A lot of denial and just ignorance about what was going on.
I mean, I knew he was prescribed the bike it in, but.
Actually, I didn't realize it was actually bike it in for a long time.
(24:21):
I think it was after the first incident where he was in a car accident that he said, well,
I don't know if I want to tell the doctor this because I actually wasn't supposed to be drinking on this medication.
I don't want him to stop prescribing it.
And that was news to me that way you haven't you weren't supposed to be drinking this whole time.
(24:42):
And something else.
But just a lot of ignorance, like a lot of red flags that I didn't catch because I didn't know it was an issue.
And so when does it come to the point where you're no longer able to put it under the there's no denying it.
(25:11):
So the first kind of halfway wake up call was that car accident where now I know, okay, he's been abusing his bills and he's not supposed to be drinking.
So we got rid of all the alcohol in the house and this is where ignorance came into play.
I don't want him to stop taking the bike at him because if he stops getting it from a doctor, he'll probably just go find it on the streets.
(25:37):
And he's in pain and even when I found out he was using the THC pen that was I bought into his sob story of, I just use it for my pain.
I bought into all of those lies that were fed me for a while.
And so my major wake up call that though was that I was in this April of 2019.
(26:03):
I was in the hospital for a planned video EEG.
And I was there for a week and Patrick was acting really strange that week just falling asleep even when the doctors were in the room I didn't recognize that is nodding off.
Or just when he was awake was like just moving and shuffling around and like unnecessarily organizing things. And one night I kind of said, just sit down and he got mad and left the room went up to get some food around the streets of the hospital.
(26:38):
When he came back in, he went into the bathroom and I heard a collapse.
So I again, one thing when I talked to family members is just the importance of education on overdose. And even just on the signs that I missed that he was using that week.
But then I witnessed this overdose when I found him, you know, on the floor of the bathroom, and I didn't know what it was.
(27:07):
And I just picked up the nurse call button and just said, I need some help in here and actually I was more concerned about the cost of what the hospital bill might be for him because I just was so clueless.
And so a couple rounds of nurses came in and then finally they see him turning purple and realize he's not breathing and code blue is called oxygen tank.
(27:33):
He's taken off the wall, chest compressions. I hear work them saying like not breathing or no pulse but I didn't understand that for several minutes Patrick was actually medically dead.
And they didn't even Narcan him because they also didn't recognize it or have enough information to know it was an overdose, but they were able to revive him, get him into the ER.
(28:00):
And by that next morning, I found out that they had found heroin in his system.
And so then I knew, okay, so this is really serious now it's not just drinking or abusing his prescription. Now he found heroin.
And that's, that's especially talking to my parents pastor that's in recovery. I kind of took some advice like, okay, he needs to go to rehab and he needs to get some help now.
(28:34):
And so he did. He decided to go into this 30 day program that was a part of the hospital he was at.
Take us to that moment.
How do you get starting a church plan working in ministry to the bathroom tour?
(28:58):
It is very easy in my addiction in my alcoholism to separate that I'm able to convince myself and the truth is a lot of myself. All and that's the hardest part of this is because for the longest time I was feeding her lies.
(29:19):
But the truth is, the first person I was lying to myself the entire time there were multiple instances where I would attempt to get some type of substance while I was under the influence of alcohol.
I would try to get something else and wake up the next day and go, that was stupid. I would never do that again.
And believe it and not realize how close to the edge and go over the edge I already was and working in this church plan and I was just able to separate.
(29:54):
I was able to always put the line in the sand that was too far a little bit farther away every time.
So I'm abusing these vikings and I'm drinking but I'm still telling myself but I'm not using heroin. The pills are coming from my doctor. I can buy the alcohol down the street. That's okay.
(30:16):
And at the same time, no, it's a problem.
I'm still doing good work in ministry. I've had opportunities to preach sermons and I'm still sharing my testimony with people that I meet in public.
And that's kind of the insanity of it. That week while she was in the hospital, I was working again. I was still working as a manager for a local fast food restaurant while also working at the church because it's a plan.
(30:49):
There's no salary yet.
So I was working and then had the house to myself and driving out to UAB to see him.
And I picked up my prescription early on in that week and just I was at the end. There wasn't any more control of light left in me.
(31:19):
I do remember multiple times when I would be driving to work and I mean listening to worship songs on the radio and in full peace.
God, you got to take this away. You got to end everything I knew about the 12 steps already.
Like I'm sitting here asking God to remove this and I know that process and I know what I need to do.
(31:45):
But I had so far been removed from me that everything was still called up and pride and ego and I was terrified to just get honest because I felt like I had built up a reputation.
And if I started to get honest, people would start to value me the same way I was valuable myself.
(32:12):
So the week that she was in the hospital, I was taking way more pills than I had been before.
And by that weekend, I had depleted the entire supply.
And the night that in question that was when I finished up those pills where she had yelled at me to sit down because I was in a manic state from opiates.
(32:40):
I was about to get dinner for us and even that night sharing my testimony and complete insanity, I was talking to a homeless person and I was talking about how powerful our God is and that he had removed this heroin addiction from me.
And his response was I can get some heroin immediately.
(33:05):
And though I had just told him that that had been removed from me, I said well, call him.
And I remember picking it up and going and actually the whole time she's I'm getting messages where are you this is taking forever because now I'm sitting down at a burger down the street waiting on this guy's dealer to show up and I'm making up excuses on the phone.
(33:31):
And I get back up to her hospital room and we argue some more about something I don't even know.
And I remember going into the bathroom and snorting half of what I had.
And the only fault that I remember having was that tasted like heroin.
(33:52):
And then my next memory is waking up the next day.
How does it feel hearing that back.
I mean, I've heard his story and his perception a lot.
(34:12):
But early on, though, when he would share what happened, there was a lot of just distortion and what he was sharing.
He would tell me things and I would say, no, you know, the argument wasn't about, you know, this, this is what happened.
(34:35):
And there's been a lot that we've worked through that, you know, family members often say, well, they don't even really remember what happened and I'll, you know, say, well, yes, but still their perspective and their, their reality can't just be dismissed.
You know, that they have different perceptions. But what's important is that you guys come together and focus on the solution.
(35:03):
And I think that's, that's what we've been able to do that I've stopped focusing on all the ways he was wrong and just ways that we could get better.
And that's a tough shift. Yeah.
It did not happen then.
You don't instantly go from, no.
(35:24):
And you've got to be scared. Yeah. I mean, you don't have, it's not like you grew up where this was, you know, a lot of people around you were dealing with addiction and overdose and this is your first time through it, right?
I remember just being in shock. I remember when I did go home when he was out of the hospital and in rehab, just staring at the wall, like not even with the TV on just sitting in the living room staring at the wall like in shock like, how did my life get here?
(36:05):
How did this happen?
And just a lot of tears, a lot of just feeling hopeless and you're in a strange city. Yes. Not a lot of family. No family in town. Yeah.
And you wake up and what's the first memory?
(36:27):
I wake up and my first memory is I'm probably caught. How do I get out of this? I actually remember when I woke up, the senior pastor of this plant that was a friend of her family's and had become a friend of mine.
He was sitting next to me and he was like, he just had a look on his face and the first thing I did because I had breathing tubes down my throat, I can't speak. So I asked for a sheet of paper and without any prompting at all and the insanity and I can laugh about it now because I can go how ridiculous was this.
(37:08):
Without any prompting. All I wrote on the sheet of paper was it wasn't heroin.
And I love him because his response back to me was, are you stupid?
(37:32):
And he said that and I can still hear all the compassion in his voice when he did it. Yeah.
I don't know that I ever outright admitted that it was heroin. I don't know that there ever came a time for, at least until I was in treatment. I think I said it wasn't. A nurse basically came in and said, no, yeah, it was.
(38:00):
And they do, you know, by that point, they confirmed and what what was it?
Yes, it was heroin, but it was also car formal, which is deadly, completely deadly. And you're, I mean, we're blessed to have you here.
(38:24):
I remember in the ER the next morning, one of the nurses or doctors saying to him, you got to stop. You're lucky to be here. And even for me, that's when I realized how serious it was to.
Yeah.
So you're pack up and ready to go to rehab at that point.
(38:49):
Oh yeah, totally not.
You're still not quite.
I had no fight in me for recovery.
But somehow I always had the fight to push back against the people that were in my life.
(39:12):
And I think by the time I agreed to go to treatment, I went in the same facility where I overdosed.
But it was not because I was ready for recovery. I just, I did it to appease my family, which by the way, they were there so fast.
By the time I came to the ER, my mother and stepfather who lived in Atlanta were there. My father and stepmom who were all the way on the East Coast, North Carolina were there.
(39:44):
And very shortly after all of them, my cousin, who heard about it, drove in from Atlanta as well.
They were all there and just trying to let me know that they cared about me. And I just couldn't receive that because I was in such a dark place.
As much as I regret it, I know the first moment that Lindsay and I were alone in a room since we overdosed.
(40:09):
My family had stepped down the hall and she just said, what are you thinking right now?
And my response was honestly, I'm mad that you called the nurses. I'd much rather be dead.
What's that like to hear?
I think more than anything, I was kind of angry with his reasoning.
(40:35):
At that point, just the trauma of what I've been through was I didn't have much room for compassion in my heart.
So I think I just felt like...
You've got to start feeling like, okay, I've really been betrayed.
Yeah.
(40:56):
And yeah, so I just felt angry. Like, are you kidding me right now? You're lucky to be alive. You want to be dead.
You should be grateful for your life.
But it did kind of too feel like blaming me.
Like you should have just let me die or I'm miserable anyways.
(41:21):
I remember too, the other hurtful thing that happened in the hospital was that we had no plan for relapse.
Again, I still never really thought it was going to happen.
And I remember like the hospital gave us some resources for local rehab facilities and whatever else.
(41:42):
But I just was holding this list and I think with his mom or stepmom, we were going through and trying to figure out what should he do.
And like mentioned something to him and he said, that's a three quarter house, not a rehab.
And he was acting out of his withdrawal at that time.
(42:03):
But I just like broke down because I had no idea what to do with that.
And one thing...
Like we use terms like PHP, how is it?
All the medical terminology that goes along with treatment is all new.
Yeah, yeah, completely different world that we had to walk into.
(42:28):
And what did you ultimately decide?
After hours of just resistance, kicking and screaming, I agreed to go back into rehab and luckily like I had mentioned, there was...
(42:52):
They had an inpatient program within the facility that I was in.
And of course, I made the mistake that most people are going to want to make in that situation.
And I fought going and being directly admitted.
I wanted to go home one last night and get my stuff together and get things in order.
Even though I had all the family around that could have just brought it to me.
(43:15):
And the smartest move would have been to go directly over.
But I still had to win something, I guess.
I just... And even my first few weeks in treatment, I just wasn't ready.
I remember I spent at least a week and a half or two weeks breathing alcohol like I just had a best friend die.
(43:46):
Like I was lying a friend to rest.
And it was... I don't understand it.
Today I can't understand it.
I know the feeling associated with it, but...
Because the truth of it is...
(44:08):
The idea that I was breathing was never a reality to begin with.
Because the idea was I'll never be able to just have a beer and enjoy a barbecue.
But I'd never done that in my life.
(44:31):
Every time I drank, I drank for a fact.
The few times that I had had one beer, I didn't enjoy it.
Because everything became... I have to stop now because I need to be normal.
And normal people don't think like that.
(44:53):
But I had to go through that process and I think the turning point in treatment was as somebody who had been through the program before
and knew what the program had to offer, I found it so difficult to swallow my pride and walk back into a meeting.
(45:16):
And I actually, luckily enough, the facility that I was in took us to outside meetings.
And there was a great tech in that building who would not let me say no to anything.
I actually remember a day into my treatment, I was laying in bed for a group.
And a tech came in and said, it's time for a group and I pulled the hole.
(45:37):
I don't feel good and he shut the door.
Next thing I know, I hear that door kick back open and this little old lady walked in and said,
you get out of bed right now and you go to group.
And I did not like her for a couple days.
I love her to death now.
But again, going to a meeting tonight, I was like, I don't want to go.
(45:58):
She's like, I don't care you're going.
And the whole way there, I remember just feeling like there was static in my body.
I was so nervous about having to go back into these rooms.
And mind you, this is a city I've never been to in recovery in.
(46:21):
I don't know any of the people in this room.
It's not like I'm walking in and seeing my old sponsor.
Are you resisting the work that you know ahead?
The surrender?
Is it just this battle for giving up your will?
What's the main crux there?
The truth is what I know it to be now is I was resisting the shattering of this false appearance
(46:51):
or perspective that I wanted others to have for myself.
And if you admit you have this problem and you've had it a long time, people will know.
Yeah.
And for me, something that's always been a core of my belief is I developed my own value
(47:12):
in being the person that could figure it out on my own.
I hated asking for help.
I needed to be somebody who could do it on their own in everything.
And I didn't view myself that way.
That, you know, my self-esteem didn't tell me I can do it all and I don't need help.
(47:34):
I...
So...
I've heard you talk a little bit about the theology replacing kind of the work of recovery.
Is that okay?
Yes.
So what I understood is...
(47:57):
The lies I told myself when I got to Bible college was this idea that while I'm reading the Bible,
I'm learning about God and what I'm missing in all of that and what I was just blinded to.
And again, I will always attribute it to my pride was there was no amount of knowing of God
(48:18):
that can replace the knowing God and being known by Him, which is a relationship.
And that relationship is something that I initially found in the 12 steps as somebody who grew up in the church.
In my 10 years and how I felt like to be a Christian, to walk into church and put a smile on your face and say,
(48:43):
everything's okay and volunteer and poop at the spaghetti dinners and go on mission trips.
And then the rest of the week was mine.
And then when I got into a 12 step program and I started to develop and hear a message for the first time that way,
(49:04):
this is about our relationship and having a personal experience with God that my life changed.
And that's where I made this shift.
And then so quickly I felt right back out of that.
That it became, how can I learn more about God?
How can I eloquently explain it to other people that as my own pride and sense of self puffed up larger and larger and larger,
(49:33):
it just separated me from that connection.
I had lost the connection in the actual deeper relationship behind it.
I knew it was there.
There was never a point at that time where I never thought he wasn't there.
I just couldn't reveal it anymore.
And that's always been the fight is learning how to crush that outward appearance of myself.
(50:04):
Because again, inwardly, I don't feel that way.
And I think that's what was so hard about walking back into the rooms, about accepting the help and the love of my family when I was in that hospital room,
was if I start to accept this, then I have to truly give in and say that I need help.
And the second I do that, people are going to start valuing me the same way I value myself.
(50:28):
And what was that?
Nothing.
I was, if I couldn't do it on my own, then I was useless to them.
And so you're going through this, he's had this overdose.
(50:50):
He's agreed to a 30 day treatment.
And what are you thinking at this point that he's going to come home and all is going to be well or that he is not coming home.
Okay.
So somebody's talked to you that we're that there's a process here.
Are you starting to get that picture or you just, is it just kind of the anger, the betrayal you're kind of done.
(51:13):
Yeah, I think by that point, I was, I remember sitting with my pastor talking about kind of what was going on.
And part of what happened in those 32 days or 30 power main days was that what we call it in family groups, I served thank the detective started investigating.
(51:39):
I mean, and it was, there's an obsession around that too.
I remember I was looking through stuff, which to some extent we needed to do to make sure the house was safe for him. But I also, you know, figured out how to get into his Facebook and started looking through messages.
And I found out that this was not just a little slip up because of the painkillers that this for the three years of our marriage at that time.
(52:07):
He had been doing like even, you know, smoking weed without me knowing, or the drinking was a lot worse than I knew.
And then especially what was hurtful was every time we were visiting his hometown, he was contacting old friends to try to pick something up.
(52:28):
So that just added a whole new layer of just the betrayal and betrayal trauma that as a family member I really was hesitant to call it trauma because I, you know, you say trauma and you think of like, you know, witnessing a death or something
that's trauma, but trauma is also somebody that is supposed to be there a trust built relationship when that trust is broken or abused. That is a form of trauma or form of what's called betrayal trauma.
(53:02):
And so just going through all of that I got to this place of he's not ready for him to come home until I can trust him again.
And yeah, so I got to that point and people at his facility were talking to me about outpatient. And they, you know, he was telling me about sober living houses, but I had no idea what that really meant like he said that terminology was born to me.
(53:31):
And so when I heard outpatient, I heard, well, he's going to go back to work. And that's about all I heard. And I knew that he had been getting benzos or other drugs from people at work.
So my thought is, heck no, he's not going back to work. And he's definitely not coming home here.
(53:54):
So the more like council I got, I had some people directly me directly tell me, Lindsay, go home, go, go be with your parents.
And so what I ended up doing was I did move back up here to Pittsburgh and moved in with my parents.
And I wrote a letter explaining everything I had found out and asked, this is where we disagree. For me, it was asking him to come up to Pennsylvania and to go through a year long Christian program.
(54:27):
And in Patrick's perception, it was an ultimatum of if he didn't, I was going to get a divorce. And that's something, again, in five years that we've worked through is getting to this point of being able to accept like I kind of already talked about, we have different perspectives around the same events.
And it's not about who's right or wrong, or even what the facts are. It's about our different experiences around that and that we can accept that and accept each other in that.
(54:56):
So you're getting ready to leave 30 days and you get a letter saying what you felt was you got to do this one year and you're not coming home.
Yeah.
And it was more than that. It was a tough letter to read. But yeah, it was near probably about a week, maybe a week and a half before the end of my stay. On a Sunday, I was given a letter from the nursing station.
(55:28):
Come to find out that this letter was actually dropped off on Friday with specific instruction not to give it to me until Sunday.
I didn't want you to try to stop.
Yeah. So I opened up this letter and it was a complete recount of all of these messages where I have been attempting to get drugs in the past.
(55:53):
And things that to me at that point really I never even considered because in my view of them, they were attempts but they weren't successful.
So it didn't count? It's nothing. It didn't count. I didn't use. I just tried to. But I never thought about them.
(56:16):
And then it talked about how I broke in the trust and she didn't know how she could trust me or how she could live with me if she didn't trust me. And the best way for me to build trust again would be to go to this year long program.
(56:38):
So I read that and said, well, this is saying you can't live with me if you can't trust me in the only way you'll trust me is if I do this.
So I remember I called her and we had conversations.
Sounds like they might have been heated.
They were.
They were.
Conversation is a nice word.
They weren't conversations. They were arguments.
It was very straightforward. This is an ultimatum. Is this like I just wanted her to admit that this was an ultimatum. And I thought because I at that point I had opened back up to the idea of meetings.
(57:13):
When I've made it to my first one, I just there was a revelation of peace in it as terrified as I was to go. I got there and just got home.
So I was I was committed again. But at that moment I became committed to my recovery again.
And I had ideas. I had a plan of action for my recovery.
(57:36):
And it didn't include a year long program.
It was not this program and it was not in Pennsylvania.
So I felt really hurt.
And I think a lot of it almost was like this is all of my fear about how she's going to value me come to light.
(58:05):
So you're right.
Of course she feels like I'm useless and nothing.
I'm feeling a little bit of abandonment and she's finally for the first time feeling like, okay, I'm feeling a little bit of strength.
And even though there, I would have done things differently. One of my biggest regrets is choosing a program for him because I now realize the importance of letting him have say in his recovery and what works best for him.
(58:36):
But I am still proud of myself for getting to that place of setting a boundary for myself.
So I'm making the decision that was right for me.
So you go.
I go.
Not happily.
And I think a big part of it was.
(59:01):
I didn't know how well this was going to work out.
I had questions about their program and they were missing some key aspects in their program that I knew was helpful for me.
They didn't incorporate both steps into it.
And to me, I was like, this is what works.
Like this is how I gotten sober.
(59:22):
This is how I've had this relationship with God in the past.
And that's what's got me sober.
The program was flawed. I was flawed in my execution of it last time.
And they didn't have that.
And there were things that, and then just a year, it was like so much.
And it's out of state.
(59:43):
It means I'm losing my job and we have a mortgage and we have all these things.
And I was just terrified of what that meant, which what it meant was just blowing up my life as I knew it.
It was that last string to you.
That was hot.
It was everything.
(01:00:06):
And then come to find out, then we had conversations and to recognize that I'm at that point experiencing what she had already felt.
Because I'm saying this is going to blow up our life as I know it.
And her thought is you already blew up our life as I knew it.
And again, I made the commitment to go, but it wasn't for that program.
(01:00:30):
I made that commitment for my marriage.
And even at that time, it wasn't even a commitment to Lindsay.
I just came to a place where I said, this is a commitment that I've made to God.
And if I'm going to work a program that's based off of living out his will in my life, this is where it starts.
(01:00:52):
And I went and we both agree now.
It was a very hard year for both of us.
I struggled a lot in that facility with depression.
I don't think I really did much growing in my recovery.
(01:01:16):
I really treated it like a prison sentence.
I was just doing a bit.
But I knew what I was still committed to on the outside.
And I did as much as I could to start working that as quickly as I could.
(01:01:37):
But it was a tough time.
It was more studies.
Talk to me a little bit about your recovery, Lindsay.
And I know we talk a lot about individuals in your experiencing substance use disorder getting in recovery.
But what does it look like for someone to be in recovery for life?
(01:02:02):
So I just hit my absolute lowest point in life too while he is going through this program.
I'm living with my parents in their basement.
My mom always gets frustrated when I say living in their basement because it wasn't like a seller.
It was a nice basement.
But regardless, I'm an adult married woman that had to move back in with mom and dad.
(01:02:27):
I had to scrap both of our old cars before I went.
And this year that I'm living with my mom and dad, I'm continuing to pay the mortgage on this house.
That is the worst decision of our lives with my parents.
Anyways, in this breaking point, I'm still for a long time stuck in anger and bitterness and just hate really is what it was to for him and the situation and add addiction.
(01:03:00):
And somebody suggested to me, you should maybe try out celebrate recovery because everyone is in recovery there.
And I didn't like that idea.
But I went to this celebrate recovery meeting and celebrate recovery is just a Christian 12 step meeting.
We use the exact same 12 steps.
(01:03:23):
But people go for anything and everything anger, codependence motto is her habits and hang ups.
Yeah, healing from your her habits and hang ups.
And so I went to this meeting and heard people referring to themselves as hi, I'm Joe.
I'm a believer that struggles with anger or whatever.
(01:03:46):
And that was really strange to me that these people that didn't struggle with drug addiction or alcohol were saying I'm in recovery.
And I remember going home to my dad and saying, I don't know how I feel about this everyone's in recovery but I think that's probably why I need to keep going back.
And I'll and on or not teach the same thing that family members friends can all be in recovery use the same 12 steps just for healing from any life issues period.
(01:04:20):
And I, you know, it took a little while to get out of that mindset of I don't need recovery. Patrick needs recovery.
He's the one that has the issues. But the more I kept going to these meetings, the more the focus shifted off of Patrick.
One of the guidelines in celebrate recovery sharing is keep your sharing focused on your own thoughts and feelings, not someone else's.
(01:04:47):
You know, I could still talk and share about what I was going through but ultimately the focus had to come back to me and, you know, my struggles and how I could improve.
And that's where things started to get better for me. This couldn't be a I get to come in this room and complain about Patrick.
(01:05:10):
Look at all the bad things. Patrick's done. Yeah. Is that what I'm hearing? Yeah.
I remember being in an Allen on meeting and just afterwards like trying to vent to this lady that was there and she just kind of gently said like redirected it back to me or something.
And I remember kind of like this frustration of why isn't anyone letting me just vent and dump. And you know, I eventually found a friend where I could do some of that with but these recovery meetings were so important to shift that focus back on to me.
(01:05:40):
Yeah. And you start finding community in other family members who are.
Yes, so other people whose families are experiencing the same thing. The, the first friend, the friend I mentioned.
Her husband had about a year, a year and some months of recovery at that point. And when I met her and my mom had already pointed her out to me at church. So I kind of knew her history. And when I met her and mentioned, yeah, my husband's going through this.
(01:06:13):
She said to me, you know, I live every day learning how to be okay if tomorrow he's not okay.
And that like that's blue one mind. Yeah. And even with the year like her husband was like this perfect picture of recovery to me.
And yeah, that that idea and I still live by that motto today that I need to be okay and live every day one day at a time, learning to be okay if tomorrow Patrick isn't okay because that's the nature of this disease of addiction is that, you know, five years
(01:06:51):
and I'm still relapse tonight tomorrow. I don't live in fear of that, but I do live in awareness of that.
That's a really love that I don't live in fear, but I live in awareness. Yeah, that's really good. That's good advice.
What's life like now you guys have done a lot of work. It's going to be five years from Sunday. Congratulations to you both. I mean, I'm sure it doesn't sound like it's been easy.
(01:07:25):
But it sounds like it's been worth it. Absolutely. Absolutely.
I don't I would say it's never easy. I mean, that's not what we were promised in this life.
But it's gotten better. And through every difficulty we've had, we've grown closer together.
(01:07:49):
We've grown closer to God. And we've learned something about each other and we learned something about how we're able to pursue fear.
Yeah. And I'll add that, you know, we were in marriage counseling for his second year where he was interning in this program. We lived separately for two years.
(01:08:12):
And so you went one year to the program and then you stayed and then I interned. Wow. He interned at the Pittsburgh location for the second year.
And during that year, we were able to start doing some marriage counseling. And I found that towards the end of that second year, the focus shift shifted from it being on him and her kind of getting us out of that crisis to back on to me.
(01:08:38):
And she started talking to me about emotional intimacy and the important she talked to both of us about it, the importance of rebuilding trust and having emotional intimacy.
Because now that we were out of crisis, we need to learn how to trust each other again, but even more than that how to be better than we were before to communicate better and be connected on a different level.
(01:09:04):
So that's been a lot of intentional work of not just chatting about how's your day. Oh, it was good. But, you know, when we share these stories to prompt, well, how did that interaction with that co worker make you feel or, you know, what do you know, what was that emotion on the deeper level or, you know,
what do you think you could do tomorrow to maybe make that better. Which is, I mean, it is intentional. It's still intentional today. It's like sometimes it's like this is a lot of work.
(01:09:37):
Can we just talk about work without having to talk about feelings and you chose to work together to building that adds another level. I mean, I'm more grateful to have you both here.
You share that you're still working through things and you still you shared with a group yesterday that you still go to counseling that you still work on this day after day.
(01:10:07):
Yeah, we're still every other week now because again, we're not in crisis. We're in maintenance now. Yeah.
But that's it. And even maintenance isn't the right word for it. It's just, you know, it's just continued work part of what you do where you know maintenance can imply that we're, you know, kind of just staying where we are.
And what's it like to share openly that yes, we're in recovery.
(01:10:33):
I mean, that was kind of your fear. Your greatest fear was that honesty. And now you live in that radical honesty.
Yeah. And that's part of it is in my in my own pride and in my ego when I get outside of the will of God, my life becomes I've got to be able to do this. I've got to be strong enough.
(01:11:01):
And what I come to every time in my recovery is, you know, I can't get past step one until I recognize that I'm powerless. It's not powerless. That's the symptom of the problem.
I'm powerless over my life and my ability to control and manage situations outside of myself.
(01:11:24):
Then I look at it and I think about all the things that I've done before. I was a liar and a manipulator to my wife and I care more about my own comfort than her emotional security.
And these are all terrible things and I was even worse years before.
And today, I have to think if I lived a life in that way, I need to be able to see some good come out of it.
(01:11:58):
No good can come out of it unless I'm open and honest and share what that was like so people can know that there's a way out.
I really want and we're going to have to have a part two or three, whatever.
So if you guys are willing, I would love to sit down with you again, talk about the backstory. This was kind of that second time through recovery.
(01:12:27):
Love to hear kind of how your journey into addiction started and childhood stuff and if you're willing to share that.
I can share.
So thank you so much for being with us. We always end with favorite recovery quote.
What you got?
I always want to think I can find something else, but it's true. I spoke to my wife about this and she's like, this is always yours.
(01:12:53):
I hear you say it all the time and it's the quote from recovery material on page 64. And it says, it's important not to let up on the spiritual program of action and rest on our laurels.
We are headed for trouble if we do. Alcohol is a subtle burden.
(01:13:14):
We are not sure of our addiction. What we have is a daily reprieve contingent on the maintenance of our spiritual condition.
And to me, it's as simple as as somebody who's been in and out of the rooms.
I have to persevere that I am not staying sober today based off of what I did yesterday. That I have to continue to engage and pursue this manner of living so that I continue to live in accordance with the power of my higher power.
(01:13:52):
It's really good. Do you have one, Lindsay?
Yeah, for me, it's the serenity prayer, but there's actually a full version.
And, you know, partially this is mine just because I also came to a place of realizing I was powerless and the serenity prayer definitely embraces that same idea.
(01:14:15):
So, past the God grant me the serenity to accept the things I cannot change. Oh my goodness, I'm pausing. To change the things I can and the wisdom to know the difference.
It continues to living one day at a time, enjoying one moment at a time, accepting hardship as a pathway to peace, taking as Jesus did the sinful world as it is, not as I would have it.
(01:14:43):
Ooh, that's good. Not as I would have it.
Yeah, I never would have had addiction, but honestly, five years later, I look back on it and I'm grateful for what Patrick's addiction has, where it has brought us now.
Thank you both for sharing with us today. For your vulnerability, for your honesty. It means so much.
(01:15:06):
Thank you listeners for joining us today. If you or someone you know needs help, we have people standing by that can talk to you. Please call 1-833-RCA-ALUMN.
Have a great day. It's our hope for you.
(01:15:49):
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, as well as free sober events every month.
To learn more about what we do, find us at RCAalumni.com.
(01:16:11):
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.
Listen to another episode now or join us next time for the Strength and Recovery podcast.
Hello listeners, thank you for tuning in today to the Strength and Recovery podcast.
(00:25):
We are in Monroeville, Pennsylvania, which is right outside of Pittsburgh.
Can I say that?
Would you call this a suburb of Pittsburgh?
I would call this Pittsburgh.
You would call this Pittsburgh.
That works too.
Nobody knows where Monroeville is.
I know Monroeville because I've been here a few times now and I am obsessed with Big
(00:49):
Rig BBQ.
If you're near Pittsburgh, if you're near Monroeville, Big Rig BBQ has, and we're not
sponsored, we just like food.
(01:11):
They have the best brisket grilled cheese.
I think that's my favorite.
If you're around on a Friday, they do a smoked wing special.
Fantastic.
Like buffalo wings?
They just do them smoke with like a little dry rub on them.
They're great.
Okay.
Well, thank you for that.
(01:32):
Now back to the podcast.
Thank you so much for joining us.
I'm joined today by Patrick Yarborough and his wife, Lindsay.
They both work at RCA Monroeville.
They're such an important part of the fabric here at RCA Monroeville.
I wanted you to hear their story.
(01:53):
Lindsay, I want to just start with you.
Tell us a little bit about what you do here.
So I'm the outpatient administrative assistant.
Been here almost three years and basically just provide administrative support to the
outpatient department here.
A lot of back end work, but also a lot of front of office, front of house work.
(02:18):
And I think you're under telling or underestimating the impacts you have on our outpatient patients
that come in every day.
And maybe they're here for PHP, which is five days a week and or intensive outpatient IOP,
which is three days a week.
(02:39):
And you greet them and you're just that steady force that they see every single day and you're
a big part of their experience.
So thank you for your work.
You also lead our family support group on Tuesday nights.
Can you tell us a little bit about that?
Yeah, so that is called team, Naklenin for teaching, encouraging, advocating, meeting.
(03:03):
And that, I mean, it'll be a lot of what I talk about here, just encouraging family members
to start their own recovery and just work on their own healing journey.
And that's every Tuesday, seven to eight PM.
And that is both face to face and virtual.
Awesome.
And I think it's interesting and we're going to talk about and one of the reasons why I
(03:26):
wanted to sit down with you both is because you both consider yourself in recovery and
you consider yourself in recovery from not drugs and alcohol, but life, right?
Yeah.
And you've done a lot of work as a family member and the main support person for your
(03:48):
loved one who's in recovery, right?
Can I say it that way?
Yeah, I think so.
And Patrick, tell us a little bit about what you do.
So yes, well, I'll say I've been with Recovery Centers of America here in Monroeville for
about two years.
I initially started as a case manager and I spent some time working with the insurance
companies and making sure that people were covered for their time with us.
(04:13):
But now my role and something I will say that I've been passionate about since I walked
in the door of RCAS and went in recovery is our Alumni Association.
I'm one of the alumni coordinators here at Recovery Centers of America in Monroeville.
And what I do is I just work to start building connections and relationships with our patients
(04:37):
as they come in for inpatient or whether they go directly to outpatient, I try to get over
there and just let them know early on that we are here to be a support for them.
We are here to invite them and encourage them to stay engaged with patients that are still
coming in through alumni meetings, through service opportunities in the community, as
(05:02):
well as just opportunities to get together and go to events and just know that it is
possible to have fun in sobriety and let them know that we will continue to be there for
them long after they've walked out the doors of our CA.
I think peer recovery has become a real buzzword in our community and peer mentorship just
(05:28):
in the medical field in general.
What does it mean to have a sit down time with someone who's been in your shoes who
understands what that patient is going through?
Talk a little bit about that relationship.
Yeah, in the recovery community you'll hear a lot about sharing your experience, strength,
(05:50):
and hope.
As somebody who's been in the grips of alcoholism and addiction myself and understanding just
how hopeless it feels to have all the desire in the world to do something different but
to just not know how to go about it and not even know how to take the first step, it's
so helpful to have somebody that can come in and share their story and I can immediately
(06:14):
connect to that and recognize that they've dealt with some of the same difficulties.
Now to some degree they're different, we're all individuals, we're all different people,
but at the core of it they really understand what it means to be trapped by this substance
(06:35):
use but then to see that something's different now, that they were like I was but something's
changed and then I can be encouraged to know that if whatever that is is working for them
then I can come alongside them and they can show me what they've done and they can pull
me out of it and there's hope in that.
So and just knowing that you have a support, someone you can reach out to that can talk
(07:01):
you through just life and knowing that you're not alone is something I always like to say.
We all recover in a vacuum, we have to do it with a group of individuals around us, people
that can come around us and support us and a lot of times, especially in early recovery
for me, that was somebody to love me when I wasn't ready to love myself.
(07:23):
And I think it becomes so important to, like you serve as a peer mentor to our families
because it's something you walked through Lindsay and you serve for patients and for
alums and there's something really powerful about not having to bring shame into that
(07:48):
relationship and it's the first time you're really meeting, maybe it's the first time
you're really meeting somebody who knows what that journey is like, knows what the, not
only the activity but the surrounding guilt and shame and stigma that people are walking
through.
(08:09):
How would you describe that?
Yeah, I think just, I mean for me it's a privilege to over basically the past five
years to share just what I learned through really hard times and to be able to share
that with family members.
(08:30):
Just the education and this idea of being in recovery is all stuff that I didn't have
and there were some mistakes I made early on that was just a lack of education.
And so being able to share that with family members and especially get them out of that
obsession of their loved one or another way of praising it as being addicted to their
(08:54):
addiction, giving them that hope in recovery for themselves as well.
Would you mind taking us back to what was early, tell me how you met and it was to start
there.
How'd you meet?
Yeah, we met at a tiny, tiny Bible college in upstate New York.
(09:19):
I had been a student there for a couple of years already and one of my best friends told
me that his cousin was coming up like the next year to start in classes there and he
said I'm really concerned about my cousin.
I don't know how he's going to do here because he's a recovering addict.
(09:40):
So I kind of like I knew of this guy that was coming up to campus.
Early Patrick was my brother's roommate for the first semester.
So a combination of being good friends with his cousin and then my brother's roommate
kind of got to know Patrick fairly quickly.
(10:00):
Well, yeah, very quickly.
We were dating within a month of the semester starting.
But yeah, so I had been warned about this guy, this addict that was coming.
But Patrick showed up.
He was a southern gentleman wearing bright colored polos and he just looked put together
(10:25):
and not knowing anything about addiction.
He didn't fit the stigmatized view of what I had of what an addict looks like.
So and aside from that, we had conversations early on about his history of addiction and
what that was like and just the change that he felt his restored faith was making at that
(10:50):
time.
But I even though I knew about his past, I never thought it was going to be in our future.
Did you have much experience in your upbringing?
No, zero experience in my upbringing.
I was quote unquote the good kid in high school and didn't party and didn't mess around with
(11:12):
anything.
So yeah, I had zero experience with addiction, alcoholism.
Yeah.
Yeah.
So you marry?
Was it a pretty short engagement, courtship?
We got married a year and a half from the day we started dating.
(11:32):
Yeah.
And so you get married.
How soon is it when you're going something feels not quite right?
I mean, actually the first summer we were married and this is something I mean, we can
laugh about a lot of this now, but you know, understand that this is he's almost to five
(11:56):
years and a couple of days he will be five years sober.
So this has been a long healing journey that now we can laugh about some of the insanity
that happened.
So the first summer we were married, I was being a good newlywed wife and decided to
organize his closet for him and found a bag of some herbal looking stuff.
(12:18):
And I think in my heart, I knew what it was, but I didn't want to believe what it was.
So when I confronted him, this is just the insanity of addiction.
He told me that it was a tincture for keeping his clothes fresh.
I thought, well, you know, some people had.
I know.
And I joke.
(12:39):
Again, we joke now.
And I say now, like when she was like, oh, okay, I was immediately just thinking, really,
you bought that.
Yeah.
And you know, people put lavender in their clothes.
And again, I knew, but I didn't want to believe it.
(13:00):
So and then things kind of progressed from there.
Patrick had the mindset of, well, or he told me anyways, I'm in, I was an addict, not an
alcoholic.
So I think it's okay for me to drink and not knowing anything about addiction.
Sure, that meets my needs.
So we drank casually together.
(13:20):
And they didn't, that wasn't a red flag for me, but into about two years or so into marriage,
you know, he worked at a fast food restaurant.
And afterwards he would go out with the guys for drinks.
And he started to get where he was coming back later and later and later, like four,
(13:44):
five a.m. or not at all.
And when I confronted him about that, this is where gaslighting comes in, making me question
my own reality.
When I confronted him, he said, well, you know, I feel like you're treating me like
someone I used to be and not who I am now.
(14:05):
And so because he kind of in his addiction dismissed it that way, I kind of, I dismissed
it myself because I thought, well, I'm just the one that's overreacting, I guess.
And what's going on with you during this time?
So I came from a community where I was very tied in to recovery fellowships.
(14:27):
I was working a strong program.
And I did, I had this idea that as I came up to Bible College, I didn't get tied back
into that recovery community in this new area.
And I was able to justify that by saying, well, everything about these programs is meant
to deepen your understanding of what your higher power is.
(14:51):
And I have that here.
And I'm learning the Bible.
I'm reading through all of these Old Testament stories about how God is faithful.
And I'm building my understanding of God.
And I have all of these friends around me that have the same relationship.
So I don't need the fellowship.
(15:12):
And that was my first big mistake.
So you stopped going to the meetings?
Stopped going to the meetings.
Relationship with sponsor?
At that point, no.
My sponsor, my last sponsor was back in South Carolina.
And I just, I had one friend that happened to be in recovery.
(15:33):
He was right across the hall from me in the dorms.
And we quickly became best friends, and I just started working a lot.
I was in school full time.
I was volunteering in the church we were attending.
And what I knew to be, initially, my perspective was, because of the work that I'm doing, growing
(15:57):
closer to God, He is allowing me to be of service in these ways.
We shifted, and my pride started coming back in, and it became, God, look at all the ways
I'm serving you.
And I wasn't able to catch that shift in myself, and that's where that fellowship would have
(16:20):
been so helpful.
Because these are people who have been there, have experienced it, and they could have called
me on it.
That peer to peer, like we know where this thing leads.
And it's things that they can say to me that I won't accept from anyone else in the world
because I'm stubborn and obstinate.
But when it comes from them, and I know the heart behind it because I've experienced what
(16:43):
they've experienced, I just can receive things better from that person.
And I didn't do it.
And...
So how long did you have, what was your sobriety time looking like when you...
I had about a year and three months.
And it was within a few months of getting there and getting into this schedule that
(17:06):
I remember the first time I had moved into an apartment by myself at the time.
And I remember sitting at home at night, and I was just kind of burnt out.
I was going nonstop most of the week.
And there was a corner store down the street, and I thought, you know what, God, look at
(17:27):
all the work that I'm doing for God.
He's freed me of this obsession.
He's freed me from all of this.
I can probably have a drink.
And I remember going down to the store and picking up like one 24-ounce beer and coming
home and sitting down and watching TV and drinking it.
And that was it.
And I said, well, I successfully drank it.
(17:51):
And gradually from that point on, even that was still during our engagement, it just kept
getting worse.
And every thought that I had went back to how I successfully did it that one time.
And that was always my focus.
And looking back now, I can look back and see that the truth of it is that I either focused
(18:21):
on controlling my drinking to the point that I was never able to enjoy it, or I gave in
and drank from a toilet and drank an excess out of control.
And those were the only two experiences that I really had in those periods of time.
When I was drinking casually with her, she's drinking its casual drinks.
But in my mind, the obsession is still there, but it's the opposite.
It's don't drink too much, don't drink too much, don't drink too much, you can't drink
(18:44):
too much, you can't know that.
And for the longest time, I think she had this understanding that I believed what I
was saying when I was saying I'm an addict.
Alcohol wasn't an issue, but the truth was that was already, that was the first of many
lives to come of me trying to protect this relationship with alcohol, with substances.
(19:10):
How soon do you know this is a problem for me?
Honestly, I didn't know that was a problem.
I didn't come to terms.
You didn't feel like I've relapsed right away.
Oh, okay.
That was something that I may have pushed out.
(19:31):
I think within about six months, I knew within myself that there was a problem with this
relationship, but the obsession was still there, and it wasn't.
This is problem drinking.
I know I'm living in a lie.
(19:51):
I'm hiding this from my friend who's in recovery.
I'm hiding this from a campus that's actually a dry campus, but here I am drinking in my
apartment.
And that was still a campus apartment.
That was there from the beginning, but I was still able to tell myself that I can get this
under control.
(20:12):
And then you leave the college and you start working in ministry, still leading this double
life?
Yeah.
At that point, actually near the end of our time, while we were in New York, I had started
using like THC pens, the vape pens, and by that point, I had admitted it to her and said
(20:38):
that while I'm using it for pain management and her anxiety, and she accepted that and
I guess to some extent allowed it even though she never really liked it.
But then we left New York.
We go down to Alabama, and there was actually a clear point where I said, okay, I'm going
to be working in ministry now.
(21:00):
I have to stop all of this.
And I think for about a month, I successfully did not do anything.
And then we closed on a house pretty shortly after that because, you know, we were thinking
very clear headed.
Here's me and an active alcoholism.
(21:21):
We just moved states away from any loved ones.
We've been here for a couple months to work with a church.
Let's buy a house.
A church.
Plants.
Plants.
Not in the established church.
Plants.
And then right after we bought the house, the alcohol came right back into the picture.
And within a couple months of that, we closed on that house in October.
(21:46):
And in December, my doctor, who I had just started seeing, put me back into a pain management
program for pain that I've always had.
That was the reason I started using opioids.
And he prescribed me about a hundred and twelve, ten milligrams of vitamin in a month, which
(22:08):
to the average person is a large amount of opioids.
But to me, who was already back in an addiction with alcohol and had a history of heroin use,
all that did was remind me of what I was missing.
It was just enough to scratch in it, but not enough to alleviate it.
(22:33):
And I remember fighting to take those prescriptions correctly, or at least try to wait long enough
after I took too many so it matched up.
Do you tell the doctor you have a history of substance use disorder?
The doctor did know about a past.
(22:55):
But I don't think I was a hundred percent right.
I was an ID heroin addict.
I said, I appreciate you, but I did screw something with that.
And it was so quick.
As difficult, and as I can look back and see the reality of the alcohol use through that time and how
(23:18):
problematic it was, there was no denial.
The problem, once the opioids were added back to it, I quickly lost control.
And this month, I successfully kept pills at least near the end of the prescription.
But quickly after that, it became I was out in two weeks.
(23:39):
I was out in two weeks again.
And then I would be the last month that I picked up that prescription.
That entire prescription was gone in four or five days.
What are you experiencing at this time?
I'm not sure.
I'm not sure.
(24:00):
I'm not sure.
I'm not sure.
I'm not sure.
I'm not sure.
I was a little bit.
I was a little bit.
I was a little bit.
A lot of denial and just ignorance about what was going on.
I mean, I knew he was prescribed the bike it in, but.
Actually, I didn't realize it was actually bike it in for a long time.
(24:21):
I think it was after the first incident where he was in a car accident that he said, well,
I don't know if I want to tell the doctor this because I actually wasn't supposed to be drinking on this medication.
I don't want him to stop prescribing it.
And that was news to me that way you haven't you weren't supposed to be drinking this whole time.
(24:42):
And something else.
But just a lot of ignorance, like a lot of red flags that I didn't catch because I didn't know it was an issue.
And so when does it come to the point where you're no longer able to put it under the there's no denying it.
(25:11):
So the first kind of halfway wake up call was that car accident where now I know, okay, he's been abusing his bills and he's not supposed to be drinking.
So we got rid of all the alcohol in the house and this is where ignorance came into play.
I don't want him to stop taking the bike at him because if he stops getting it from a doctor, he'll probably just go find it on the streets.
(25:37):
And he's in pain and even when I found out he was using the THC pen that was I bought into his sob story of, I just use it for my pain.
I bought into all of those lies that were fed me for a while.
And so my major wake up call that though was that I was in this April of 2019.
(26:03):
I was in the hospital for a planned video EEG.
And I was there for a week and Patrick was acting really strange that week just falling asleep even when the doctors were in the room I didn't recognize that is nodding off.
Or just when he was awake was like just moving and shuffling around and like unnecessarily organizing things. And one night I kind of said, just sit down and he got mad and left the room went up to get some food around the streets of the hospital.
(26:38):
When he came back in, he went into the bathroom and I heard a collapse.
So I again, one thing when I talked to family members is just the importance of education on overdose. And even just on the signs that I missed that he was using that week.
But then I witnessed this overdose when I found him, you know, on the floor of the bathroom, and I didn't know what it was.
(27:07):
And I just picked up the nurse call button and just said, I need some help in here and actually I was more concerned about the cost of what the hospital bill might be for him because I just was so clueless.
And so a couple rounds of nurses came in and then finally they see him turning purple and realize he's not breathing and code blue is called oxygen tank.
(27:33):
He's taken off the wall, chest compressions. I hear work them saying like not breathing or no pulse but I didn't understand that for several minutes Patrick was actually medically dead.
And they didn't even Narcan him because they also didn't recognize it or have enough information to know it was an overdose, but they were able to revive him, get him into the ER.
(28:00):
And by that next morning, I found out that they had found heroin in his system.
And so then I knew, okay, so this is really serious now it's not just drinking or abusing his prescription. Now he found heroin.
And that's, that's especially talking to my parents pastor that's in recovery. I kind of took some advice like, okay, he needs to go to rehab and he needs to get some help now.
(28:34):
And so he did. He decided to go into this 30 day program that was a part of the hospital he was at.
Take us to that moment.
How do you get starting a church plan working in ministry to the bathroom tour?
(28:58):
It is very easy in my addiction in my alcoholism to separate that I'm able to convince myself and the truth is a lot of myself. All and that's the hardest part of this is because for the longest time I was feeding her lies.
(29:19):
But the truth is, the first person I was lying to myself the entire time there were multiple instances where I would attempt to get some type of substance while I was under the influence of alcohol.
I would try to get something else and wake up the next day and go, that was stupid. I would never do that again.
And believe it and not realize how close to the edge and go over the edge I already was and working in this church plan and I was just able to separate.
(29:54):
I was able to always put the line in the sand that was too far a little bit farther away every time.
So I'm abusing these vikings and I'm drinking but I'm still telling myself but I'm not using heroin. The pills are coming from my doctor. I can buy the alcohol down the street. That's okay.
(30:16):
And at the same time, no, it's a problem.
I'm still doing good work in ministry. I've had opportunities to preach sermons and I'm still sharing my testimony with people that I meet in public.
And that's kind of the insanity of it. That week while she was in the hospital, I was working again. I was still working as a manager for a local fast food restaurant while also working at the church because it's a plan.
(30:49):
There's no salary yet.
So I was working and then had the house to myself and driving out to UAB to see him.
And I picked up my prescription early on in that week and just I was at the end. There wasn't any more control of light left in me.
(31:19):
I do remember multiple times when I would be driving to work and I mean listening to worship songs on the radio and in full peace.
God, you got to take this away. You got to end everything I knew about the 12 steps already.
Like I'm sitting here asking God to remove this and I know that process and I know what I need to do.
(31:45):
But I had so far been removed from me that everything was still called up and pride and ego and I was terrified to just get honest because I felt like I had built up a reputation.
And if I started to get honest, people would start to value me the same way I was valuable myself.
(32:12):
So the week that she was in the hospital, I was taking way more pills than I had been before.
And by that weekend, I had depleted the entire supply.
And the night that in question that was when I finished up those pills where she had yelled at me to sit down because I was in a manic state from opiates.
(32:40):
I was about to get dinner for us and even that night sharing my testimony and complete insanity, I was talking to a homeless person and I was talking about how powerful our God is and that he had removed this heroin addiction from me.
And his response was I can get some heroin immediately.
(33:05):
And though I had just told him that that had been removed from me, I said well, call him.
And I remember picking it up and going and actually the whole time she's I'm getting messages where are you this is taking forever because now I'm sitting down at a burger down the street waiting on this guy's dealer to show up and I'm making up excuses on the phone.
(33:31):
And I get back up to her hospital room and we argue some more about something I don't even know.
And I remember going into the bathroom and snorting half of what I had.
And the only fault that I remember having was that tasted like heroin.
(33:52):
And then my next memory is waking up the next day.
How does it feel hearing that back.
I mean, I've heard his story and his perception a lot.
(34:12):
But early on, though, when he would share what happened, there was a lot of just distortion and what he was sharing.
He would tell me things and I would say, no, you know, the argument wasn't about, you know, this, this is what happened.
(34:35):
And there's been a lot that we've worked through that, you know, family members often say, well, they don't even really remember what happened and I'll, you know, say, well, yes, but still their perspective and their, their reality can't just be dismissed.
You know, that they have different perceptions. But what's important is that you guys come together and focus on the solution.
(35:03):
And I think that's, that's what we've been able to do that I've stopped focusing on all the ways he was wrong and just ways that we could get better.
And that's a tough shift. Yeah.
It did not happen then.
You don't instantly go from, no.
(35:24):
And you've got to be scared. Yeah. I mean, you don't have, it's not like you grew up where this was, you know, a lot of people around you were dealing with addiction and overdose and this is your first time through it, right?
I remember just being in shock. I remember when I did go home when he was out of the hospital and in rehab, just staring at the wall, like not even with the TV on just sitting in the living room staring at the wall like in shock like, how did my life get here?
(36:05):
How did this happen?
And just a lot of tears, a lot of just feeling hopeless and you're in a strange city. Yes. Not a lot of family. No family in town. Yeah.
And you wake up and what's the first memory?
(36:27):
I wake up and my first memory is I'm probably caught. How do I get out of this? I actually remember when I woke up, the senior pastor of this plant that was a friend of her family's and had become a friend of mine.
He was sitting next to me and he was like, he just had a look on his face and the first thing I did because I had breathing tubes down my throat, I can't speak. So I asked for a sheet of paper and without any prompting at all and the insanity and I can laugh about it now because I can go how ridiculous was this.
(37:08):
Without any prompting. All I wrote on the sheet of paper was it wasn't heroin.
And I love him because his response back to me was, are you stupid?
(37:32):
And he said that and I can still hear all the compassion in his voice when he did it. Yeah.
I don't know that I ever outright admitted that it was heroin. I don't know that there ever came a time for, at least until I was in treatment. I think I said it wasn't. A nurse basically came in and said, no, yeah, it was.
(38:00):
And they do, you know, by that point, they confirmed and what what was it?
Yes, it was heroin, but it was also car formal, which is deadly, completely deadly. And you're, I mean, we're blessed to have you here.
(38:24):
I remember in the ER the next morning, one of the nurses or doctors saying to him, you got to stop. You're lucky to be here. And even for me, that's when I realized how serious it was to.
Yeah.
So you're pack up and ready to go to rehab at that point.
(38:49):
Oh yeah, totally not.
You're still not quite.
I had no fight in me for recovery.
But somehow I always had the fight to push back against the people that were in my life.
(39:12):
And I think by the time I agreed to go to treatment, I went in the same facility where I overdosed.
But it was not because I was ready for recovery. I just, I did it to appease my family, which by the way, they were there so fast.
By the time I came to the ER, my mother and stepfather who lived in Atlanta were there. My father and stepmom who were all the way on the East Coast, North Carolina were there.
(39:44):
And very shortly after all of them, my cousin, who heard about it, drove in from Atlanta as well.
They were all there and just trying to let me know that they cared about me. And I just couldn't receive that because I was in such a dark place.
As much as I regret it, I know the first moment that Lindsay and I were alone in a room since we overdosed.
(40:09):
My family had stepped down the hall and she just said, what are you thinking right now?
And my response was honestly, I'm mad that you called the nurses. I'd much rather be dead.
What's that like to hear?
I think more than anything, I was kind of angry with his reasoning.
(40:35):
At that point, just the trauma of what I've been through was I didn't have much room for compassion in my heart.
So I think I just felt like...
You've got to start feeling like, okay, I've really been betrayed.
Yeah.
(40:56):
And yeah, so I just felt angry. Like, are you kidding me right now? You're lucky to be alive. You want to be dead.
You should be grateful for your life.
But it did kind of too feel like blaming me.
Like you should have just let me die or I'm miserable anyways.
(41:21):
I remember too, the other hurtful thing that happened in the hospital was that we had no plan for relapse.
Again, I still never really thought it was going to happen.
And I remember like the hospital gave us some resources for local rehab facilities and whatever else.
(41:42):
But I just was holding this list and I think with his mom or stepmom, we were going through and trying to figure out what should he do.
And like mentioned something to him and he said, that's a three quarter house, not a rehab.
And he was acting out of his withdrawal at that time.
(42:03):
But I just like broke down because I had no idea what to do with that.
And one thing...
Like we use terms like PHP, how is it?
All the medical terminology that goes along with treatment is all new.
Yeah, yeah, completely different world that we had to walk into.
(42:28):
And what did you ultimately decide?
After hours of just resistance, kicking and screaming, I agreed to go back into rehab and luckily like I had mentioned, there was...
(42:52):
They had an inpatient program within the facility that I was in.
And of course, I made the mistake that most people are going to want to make in that situation.
And I fought going and being directly admitted.
I wanted to go home one last night and get my stuff together and get things in order.
Even though I had all the family around that could have just brought it to me.
(43:15):
And the smartest move would have been to go directly over.
But I still had to win something, I guess.
I just... And even my first few weeks in treatment, I just wasn't ready.
I remember I spent at least a week and a half or two weeks breathing alcohol like I just had a best friend die.
(43:46):
Like I was lying a friend to rest.
And it was... I don't understand it.
Today I can't understand it.
I know the feeling associated with it, but...
Because the truth of it is...
(44:08):
The idea that I was breathing was never a reality to begin with.
Because the idea was I'll never be able to just have a beer and enjoy a barbecue.
But I'd never done that in my life.
(44:31):
Every time I drank, I drank for a fact.
The few times that I had had one beer, I didn't enjoy it.
Because everything became... I have to stop now because I need to be normal.
And normal people don't think like that.
(44:53):
But I had to go through that process and I think the turning point in treatment was as somebody who had been through the program before
and knew what the program had to offer, I found it so difficult to swallow my pride and walk back into a meeting.
(45:16):
And I actually, luckily enough, the facility that I was in took us to outside meetings.
And there was a great tech in that building who would not let me say no to anything.
I actually remember a day into my treatment, I was laying in bed for a group.
And a tech came in and said, it's time for a group and I pulled the hole.
(45:37):
I don't feel good and he shut the door.
Next thing I know, I hear that door kick back open and this little old lady walked in and said,
you get out of bed right now and you go to group.
And I did not like her for a couple days.
I love her to death now.
But again, going to a meeting tonight, I was like, I don't want to go.
(45:58):
She's like, I don't care you're going.
And the whole way there, I remember just feeling like there was static in my body.
I was so nervous about having to go back into these rooms.
And mind you, this is a city I've never been to in recovery in.
(46:21):
I don't know any of the people in this room.
It's not like I'm walking in and seeing my old sponsor.
Are you resisting the work that you know ahead?
The surrender?
Is it just this battle for giving up your will?
What's the main crux there?
The truth is what I know it to be now is I was resisting the shattering of this false appearance
(46:51):
or perspective that I wanted others to have for myself.
And if you admit you have this problem and you've had it a long time, people will know.
Yeah.
And for me, something that's always been a core of my belief is I developed my own value
(47:12):
in being the person that could figure it out on my own.
I hated asking for help.
I needed to be somebody who could do it on their own in everything.
And I didn't view myself that way.
That, you know, my self-esteem didn't tell me I can do it all and I don't need help.
(47:34):
I...
So...
I've heard you talk a little bit about the theology replacing kind of the work of recovery.
Is that okay?
Yes.
So what I understood is...
(47:57):
The lies I told myself when I got to Bible college was this idea that while I'm reading the Bible,
I'm learning about God and what I'm missing in all of that and what I was just blinded to.
And again, I will always attribute it to my pride was there was no amount of knowing of God
(48:18):
that can replace the knowing God and being known by Him, which is a relationship.
And that relationship is something that I initially found in the 12 steps as somebody who grew up in the church.
In my 10 years and how I felt like to be a Christian, to walk into church and put a smile on your face and say,
(48:43):
everything's okay and volunteer and poop at the spaghetti dinners and go on mission trips.
And then the rest of the week was mine.
And then when I got into a 12 step program and I started to develop and hear a message for the first time that way,
(49:04):
this is about our relationship and having a personal experience with God that my life changed.
And that's where I made this shift.
And then so quickly I felt right back out of that.
That it became, how can I learn more about God?
How can I eloquently explain it to other people that as my own pride and sense of self puffed up larger and larger and larger,
(49:33):
it just separated me from that connection.
I had lost the connection in the actual deeper relationship behind it.
I knew it was there.
There was never a point at that time where I never thought he wasn't there.
I just couldn't reveal it anymore.
And that's always been the fight is learning how to crush that outward appearance of myself.
(50:04):
Because again, inwardly, I don't feel that way.
And I think that's what was so hard about walking back into the rooms, about accepting the help and the love of my family when I was in that hospital room,
was if I start to accept this, then I have to truly give in and say that I need help.
And the second I do that, people are going to start valuing me the same way I value myself.
(50:28):
And what was that?
Nothing.
I was, if I couldn't do it on my own, then I was useless to them.
And so you're going through this, he's had this overdose.
(50:50):
He's agreed to a 30 day treatment.
And what are you thinking at this point that he's going to come home and all is going to be well or that he is not coming home.
Okay.
So somebody's talked to you that we're that there's a process here.
Are you starting to get that picture or you just, is it just kind of the anger, the betrayal you're kind of done.
(51:13):
Yeah, I think by that point, I was, I remember sitting with my pastor talking about kind of what was going on.
And part of what happened in those 32 days or 30 power main days was that what we call it in family groups, I served thank the detective started investigating.
(51:39):
I mean, and it was, there's an obsession around that too.
I remember I was looking through stuff, which to some extent we needed to do to make sure the house was safe for him. But I also, you know, figured out how to get into his Facebook and started looking through messages.
And I found out that this was not just a little slip up because of the painkillers that this for the three years of our marriage at that time.
(52:07):
He had been doing like even, you know, smoking weed without me knowing, or the drinking was a lot worse than I knew.
And then especially what was hurtful was every time we were visiting his hometown, he was contacting old friends to try to pick something up.
(52:28):
So that just added a whole new layer of just the betrayal and betrayal trauma that as a family member I really was hesitant to call it trauma because I, you know, you say trauma and you think of like, you know, witnessing a death or something
that's trauma, but trauma is also somebody that is supposed to be there a trust built relationship when that trust is broken or abused. That is a form of trauma or form of what's called betrayal trauma.
(53:02):
And so just going through all of that I got to this place of he's not ready for him to come home until I can trust him again.
And yeah, so I got to that point and people at his facility were talking to me about outpatient. And they, you know, he was telling me about sober living houses, but I had no idea what that really meant like he said that terminology was born to me.
(53:31):
And so when I heard outpatient, I heard, well, he's going to go back to work. And that's about all I heard. And I knew that he had been getting benzos or other drugs from people at work.
So my thought is, heck no, he's not going back to work. And he's definitely not coming home here.
(53:54):
So the more like council I got, I had some people directly me directly tell me, Lindsay, go home, go, go be with your parents.
And so what I ended up doing was I did move back up here to Pittsburgh and moved in with my parents.
And I wrote a letter explaining everything I had found out and asked, this is where we disagree. For me, it was asking him to come up to Pennsylvania and to go through a year long Christian program.
(54:27):
And in Patrick's perception, it was an ultimatum of if he didn't, I was going to get a divorce. And that's something, again, in five years that we've worked through is getting to this point of being able to accept like I kind of already talked about, we have different perspectives around the same events.
And it's not about who's right or wrong, or even what the facts are. It's about our different experiences around that and that we can accept that and accept each other in that.
(54:56):
So you're getting ready to leave 30 days and you get a letter saying what you felt was you got to do this one year and you're not coming home.
Yeah.
And it was more than that. It was a tough letter to read. But yeah, it was near probably about a week, maybe a week and a half before the end of my stay. On a Sunday, I was given a letter from the nursing station.
(55:28):
Come to find out that this letter was actually dropped off on Friday with specific instruction not to give it to me until Sunday.
I didn't want you to try to stop.
Yeah. So I opened up this letter and it was a complete recount of all of these messages where I have been attempting to get drugs in the past.
(55:53):
And things that to me at that point really I never even considered because in my view of them, they were attempts but they weren't successful.
So it didn't count? It's nothing. It didn't count. I didn't use. I just tried to. But I never thought about them.
(56:16):
And then it talked about how I broke in the trust and she didn't know how she could trust me or how she could live with me if she didn't trust me. And the best way for me to build trust again would be to go to this year long program.
(56:38):
So I read that and said, well, this is saying you can't live with me if you can't trust me in the only way you'll trust me is if I do this.
So I remember I called her and we had conversations.
Sounds like they might have been heated.
They were.
They were.
Conversation is a nice word.
They weren't conversations. They were arguments.
It was very straightforward. This is an ultimatum. Is this like I just wanted her to admit that this was an ultimatum. And I thought because I at that point I had opened back up to the idea of meetings.
(57:13):
When I've made it to my first one, I just there was a revelation of peace in it as terrified as I was to go. I got there and just got home.
So I was I was committed again. But at that moment I became committed to my recovery again.
And I had ideas. I had a plan of action for my recovery.
(57:36):
And it didn't include a year long program.
It was not this program and it was not in Pennsylvania.
So I felt really hurt.
And I think a lot of it almost was like this is all of my fear about how she's going to value me come to light.
(58:05):
So you're right.
Of course she feels like I'm useless and nothing.
I'm feeling a little bit of abandonment and she's finally for the first time feeling like, okay, I'm feeling a little bit of strength.
And even though there, I would have done things differently. One of my biggest regrets is choosing a program for him because I now realize the importance of letting him have say in his recovery and what works best for him.
(58:36):
But I am still proud of myself for getting to that place of setting a boundary for myself.
So I'm making the decision that was right for me.
So you go.
I go.
Not happily.
And I think a big part of it was.
(59:01):
I didn't know how well this was going to work out.
I had questions about their program and they were missing some key aspects in their program that I knew was helpful for me.
They didn't incorporate both steps into it.
And to me, I was like, this is what works.
Like this is how I gotten sober.
(59:22):
This is how I've had this relationship with God in the past.
And that's what's got me sober.
The program was flawed. I was flawed in my execution of it last time.
And they didn't have that.
And there were things that, and then just a year, it was like so much.
And it's out of state.
(59:43):
It means I'm losing my job and we have a mortgage and we have all these things.
And I was just terrified of what that meant, which what it meant was just blowing up my life as I knew it.
It was that last string to you.
That was hot.
It was everything.
(01:00:06):
And then come to find out, then we had conversations and to recognize that I'm at that point experiencing what she had already felt.
Because I'm saying this is going to blow up our life as I know it.
And her thought is you already blew up our life as I knew it.
And again, I made the commitment to go, but it wasn't for that program.
(01:00:30):
I made that commitment for my marriage.
And even at that time, it wasn't even a commitment to Lindsay.
I just came to a place where I said, this is a commitment that I've made to God.
And if I'm going to work a program that's based off of living out his will in my life, this is where it starts.
(01:00:52):
And I went and we both agree now.
It was a very hard year for both of us.
I struggled a lot in that facility with depression.
I don't think I really did much growing in my recovery.
(01:01:16):
I really treated it like a prison sentence.
I was just doing a bit.
But I knew what I was still committed to on the outside.
And I did as much as I could to start working that as quickly as I could.
(01:01:37):
But it was a tough time.
It was more studies.
Talk to me a little bit about your recovery, Lindsay.
And I know we talk a lot about individuals in your experiencing substance use disorder getting in recovery.
But what does it look like for someone to be in recovery for life?
(01:02:02):
So I just hit my absolute lowest point in life too while he is going through this program.
I'm living with my parents in their basement.
My mom always gets frustrated when I say living in their basement because it wasn't like a seller.
It was a nice basement.
But regardless, I'm an adult married woman that had to move back in with mom and dad.
(01:02:27):
I had to scrap both of our old cars before I went.
And this year that I'm living with my mom and dad, I'm continuing to pay the mortgage on this house.
That is the worst decision of our lives with my parents.
Anyways, in this breaking point, I'm still for a long time stuck in anger and bitterness and just hate really is what it was to for him and the situation and add addiction.
(01:03:00):
And somebody suggested to me, you should maybe try out celebrate recovery because everyone is in recovery there.
And I didn't like that idea.
But I went to this celebrate recovery meeting and celebrate recovery is just a Christian 12 step meeting.
We use the exact same 12 steps.
(01:03:23):
But people go for anything and everything anger, codependence motto is her habits and hang ups.
Yeah, healing from your her habits and hang ups.
And so I went to this meeting and heard people referring to themselves as hi, I'm Joe.
I'm a believer that struggles with anger or whatever.
(01:03:46):
And that was really strange to me that these people that didn't struggle with drug addiction or alcohol were saying I'm in recovery.
And I remember going home to my dad and saying, I don't know how I feel about this everyone's in recovery but I think that's probably why I need to keep going back.
And I'll and on or not teach the same thing that family members friends can all be in recovery use the same 12 steps just for healing from any life issues period.
(01:04:20):
And I, you know, it took a little while to get out of that mindset of I don't need recovery. Patrick needs recovery.
He's the one that has the issues. But the more I kept going to these meetings, the more the focus shifted off of Patrick.
One of the guidelines in celebrate recovery sharing is keep your sharing focused on your own thoughts and feelings, not someone else's.
(01:04:47):
You know, I could still talk and share about what I was going through but ultimately the focus had to come back to me and, you know, my struggles and how I could improve.
And that's where things started to get better for me. This couldn't be a I get to come in this room and complain about Patrick.
(01:05:10):
Look at all the bad things. Patrick's done. Yeah. Is that what I'm hearing? Yeah.
I remember being in an Allen on meeting and just afterwards like trying to vent to this lady that was there and she just kind of gently said like redirected it back to me or something.
And I remember kind of like this frustration of why isn't anyone letting me just vent and dump. And you know, I eventually found a friend where I could do some of that with but these recovery meetings were so important to shift that focus back on to me.
(01:05:40):
Yeah. And you start finding community in other family members who are.
Yes, so other people whose families are experiencing the same thing. The, the first friend, the friend I mentioned.
Her husband had about a year, a year and some months of recovery at that point. And when I met her and my mom had already pointed her out to me at church. So I kind of knew her history. And when I met her and mentioned, yeah, my husband's going through this.
(01:06:13):
She said to me, you know, I live every day learning how to be okay if tomorrow he's not okay.
And that like that's blue one mind. Yeah. And even with the year like her husband was like this perfect picture of recovery to me.
And yeah, that that idea and I still live by that motto today that I need to be okay and live every day one day at a time, learning to be okay if tomorrow Patrick isn't okay because that's the nature of this disease of addiction is that, you know, five years
(01:06:51):
and I'm still relapse tonight tomorrow. I don't live in fear of that, but I do live in awareness of that.
That's a really love that I don't live in fear, but I live in awareness. Yeah, that's really good. That's good advice.
What's life like now you guys have done a lot of work. It's going to be five years from Sunday. Congratulations to you both. I mean, I'm sure it doesn't sound like it's been easy.
(01:07:25):
But it sounds like it's been worth it. Absolutely. Absolutely.
I don't I would say it's never easy. I mean, that's not what we were promised in this life.
But it's gotten better. And through every difficulty we've had, we've grown closer together.
(01:07:49):
We've grown closer to God. And we've learned something about each other and we learned something about how we're able to pursue fear.
Yeah. And I'll add that, you know, we were in marriage counseling for his second year where he was interning in this program. We lived separately for two years.
(01:08:12):
And so you went one year to the program and then you stayed and then I interned. Wow. He interned at the Pittsburgh location for the second year.
And during that year, we were able to start doing some marriage counseling. And I found that towards the end of that second year, the focus shift shifted from it being on him and her kind of getting us out of that crisis to back on to me.
(01:08:38):
And she started talking to me about emotional intimacy and the important she talked to both of us about it, the importance of rebuilding trust and having emotional intimacy.
Because now that we were out of crisis, we need to learn how to trust each other again, but even more than that how to be better than we were before to communicate better and be connected on a different level.
(01:09:04):
So that's been a lot of intentional work of not just chatting about how's your day. Oh, it was good. But, you know, when we share these stories to prompt, well, how did that interaction with that co worker make you feel or, you know, what do you know, what was that emotion on the deeper level or, you know,
what do you think you could do tomorrow to maybe make that better. Which is, I mean, it is intentional. It's still intentional today. It's like sometimes it's like this is a lot of work.
(01:09:37):
Can we just talk about work without having to talk about feelings and you chose to work together to building that adds another level. I mean, I'm more grateful to have you both here.
You share that you're still working through things and you still you shared with a group yesterday that you still go to counseling that you still work on this day after day.
(01:10:07):
Yeah, we're still every other week now because again, we're not in crisis. We're in maintenance now. Yeah.
But that's it. And even maintenance isn't the right word for it. It's just, you know, it's just continued work part of what you do where you know maintenance can imply that we're, you know, kind of just staying where we are.
And what's it like to share openly that yes, we're in recovery.
(01:10:33):
I mean, that was kind of your fear. Your greatest fear was that honesty. And now you live in that radical honesty.
Yeah. And that's part of it is in my in my own pride and in my ego when I get outside of the will of God, my life becomes I've got to be able to do this. I've got to be strong enough.
(01:11:01):
And what I come to every time in my recovery is, you know, I can't get past step one until I recognize that I'm powerless. It's not powerless. That's the symptom of the problem.
I'm powerless over my life and my ability to control and manage situations outside of myself.
(01:11:24):
Then I look at it and I think about all the things that I've done before. I was a liar and a manipulator to my wife and I care more about my own comfort than her emotional security.
And these are all terrible things and I was even worse years before.
And today, I have to think if I lived a life in that way, I need to be able to see some good come out of it.
(01:11:58):
No good can come out of it unless I'm open and honest and share what that was like so people can know that there's a way out.
I really want and we're going to have to have a part two or three, whatever.
So if you guys are willing, I would love to sit down with you again, talk about the backstory. This was kind of that second time through recovery.
(01:12:27):
Love to hear kind of how your journey into addiction started and childhood stuff and if you're willing to share that.
I can share.
So thank you so much for being with us. We always end with favorite recovery quote.
What you got?
I always want to think I can find something else, but it's true. I spoke to my wife about this and she's like, this is always yours.
(01:12:53):
I hear you say it all the time and it's the quote from recovery material on page 64. And it says, it's important not to let up on the spiritual program of action and rest on our laurels.
We are headed for trouble if we do. Alcohol is a subtle burden.
(01:13:14):
We are not sure of our addiction. What we have is a daily reprieve contingent on the maintenance of our spiritual condition.
And to me, it's as simple as as somebody who's been in and out of the rooms.
I have to persevere that I am not staying sober today based off of what I did yesterday. That I have to continue to engage and pursue this manner of living so that I continue to live in accordance with the power of my higher power.
(01:13:52):
It's really good. Do you have one, Lindsay?
Yeah, for me, it's the serenity prayer, but there's actually a full version.
And, you know, partially this is mine just because I also came to a place of realizing I was powerless and the serenity prayer definitely embraces that same idea.
(01:14:15):
So, past the God grant me the serenity to accept the things I cannot change. Oh my goodness, I'm pausing. To change the things I can and the wisdom to know the difference.
It continues to living one day at a time, enjoying one moment at a time, accepting hardship as a pathway to peace, taking as Jesus did the sinful world as it is, not as I would have it.
(01:14:43):
Ooh, that's good. Not as I would have it.
Yeah, I never would have had addiction, but honestly, five years later, I look back on it and I'm grateful for what Patrick's addiction has, where it has brought us now.
Thank you both for sharing with us today. For your vulnerability, for your honesty. It means so much.
(01:15:06):
Thank you listeners for joining us today. If you or someone you know needs help, we have people standing by that can talk to you. Please call 1-833-RCA-ALUMN.
Have a great day. It's our hope for you.
(01:15:49):
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, as well as free sober events every month.
To learn more about what we do, find us at RCAalumni.com.
(01:16:11):
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.
Listen to another episode now or join us next time for the Strength and Recovery podcast.
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