Let Go and Be Free Podcast: Episode 28 (Embracing Hope)

One of the most powerful tools we have is to have hope as we go through life. However, to have false hope when those with addictions are unable to admit they have a problem, that will only create more problems for us.

In this episode, I talk about the power of hope, the importance of setting boundaries with people, and on how we can navigate complex relationship problems.

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Transcript

Welcome to the let go and be free podcast, A podcast for those who grew up in an alcoholic or dysfunctional family. I'm your host, Ron Vitale, author of The let go and be free 100 daily reflections for adult children of alcoholics series. On this podcast, we'll talk about everything from dealing with ruminating thoughts to stopping dysfunctional behaviors that you learned as a child in an alcoholic home. Together will shine a light to dispel the shame you might have been secretly living with, about your upbringing, and then talk about practical tips that will help you center yourself and live a healthier life. Please note, I am not a therapist or a doctor, if you need professional help, please reach out to a medical expert. If you'd like to learn more, feel free to visit my website at let go and be free.com.

And with that, let's get on with the show. Welcome to this week's show where we're talking about embracing hope it's a topic that I think is important for us to kind of talk about as you're on your journey. Healing, it takes a lot of time, it takes patience, and it takes a lot of work. And I think if we just only stay in the weeds don't take time to kind of step back and see the bigger picture and the hope of things that it might seem overwhelming. So just some of the things I wanted to talk about is that, you know, if you did grow up in an alcoholic, or dysfunctional family, there might be the frustration, I know I can see this in, you know, in my own family history.

And that there's tends to be patterns of dysfunction that happen over generations, you know, alcoholism and addiction, it isn't just like the one person and affects everyone in the family, even though another person may not become an addict, their behavior of how they have adopted or adapted change, morphed to be able to survive in a dysfunctional environment. And in a family that is riddled with alcoholism or addiction, it is something that can be very harrowing to kind of see that where, you know, might look and be like, well, you know, could be your grandparents, like one of them may have been an alcoholic, and then one of your parents and then either you or your spouse, that the challenge is to overcome some of these, you know, problems in one's life just might seem extremely overwhelming.

So in this episode, want to take a little bit of a moment to step back. You know, and to admit, you know, from a high level aspect, all families have some type of, you know, problems or issues, no family is perfect, you know, it's something they kind of take in perspective here. If we are in an environment where we are continuing to see, such as alcoholism or addiction, or codependency or enmeshment, those things keep continuing through generation after generation or marriage after marriage, then there are these patterns that we might feel like we can't escape from, you know, often people just ignore problems and deny denial is a very powerful tool and coping mechanism.

You don't look the other way, stick your head in the sand and everything's good to go until it's not. And then you're trying to figure out what do you do next. So with hope, the important thing to say, I think starting off is that no matter how the difficult this, how difficult the situation currently might be, there is always hope to for a better tomorrow. And, you know, I can remember in going to some of my early adult children of alcoholics meeting, I mean, people talked about, you know, suicide in their family addiction, physical abuse, mental abuse, like I mean really difficult things and seeing the trajectory of those people over time when they chose to get help. And the help, could be in you know, different aspects.

It doesn't just have to be you know, one thing you know, it could be going to therapy, it could be doing the 12 steps, it could be going on a regular basis to adult children of alcoholics meeting. It really depends. What is important to be able to focus on is that if you are in a dark situation now or have been getting out of that It does take work, but part of it is just seeing that it is possible to have a better tomorrow. So when I was young, and things were kind of bleak. You know, in my family life when I was little, I didn't know, you know, I was too young, I was a kid, I didn't know about therapy, I didn't know about 12 stuff, I didn't know any of that. I just knew that I needed to find a way to be able to get through the day. And for me, that was escaping through reading, doing well at school and writing creative aspects of my personality. That's how I was able to kind of overcome throw myself into that work.

As I got older, I realized that those were great coping mechanisms, but it didn't solve the underlying problem of the effects of what I survived in growing up in that, you know, alcoholic and dysfunctional family. You know, those memories of the fights that took place between my parents, the, you know, the fear of abandonment, that, you know, I struggled with, as, you know, my father after he left, that was it, like, you know, it was a little bit of time we saw him when he had visitation rights for my brother and me, and then that just stopped happening. And when they did stop happening, it really translated into Wow, am I am I not lovable, I'm not worthy enough that my father doesn't want to see me.

And carrying that type of baggage. And having that baggage kind of roll over into my interpersonal relationships, and especially my romantic relationships in my early life. That created a lot of problems for me and within the relationship. And until I decided to go to therapy, and to work on these issues for myself, I just couldn't overcome them. So the good news of the hope is that it doesn't matter if you're a teenager, when you're listening this in your 20s 30s 40s, or you're in your 80s, it doesn't really matter. What does matter is that you're willing to one admit that how you grew up has caused you problems. And two, that you're willing to find a way to be able to overcome them, either through therapy through 12 Step work, or through attending adult children of alcoholics meetings, or Al Anon meetings, something that you're doing to basically help break the cycle of dysfunction.

And that is not easy to do, it could take a lot of work, it could take a lot of time, it could take a lot of effort. So in having hope. It's not just again, sticking your head in the sand and saying one day Things are going to get better. It's coming up with I guess, like a dedicated plan to be able to say I am going to try x. And if that doesn't work, then you know, if you try one therapist, and you don't make a connection with that person, try another one. But to repress, to deny, to ignore feelings and behaviors, just creates a longer road for you to be unhappy, and to work on. So, you know, speaking of my own situation, there were times where, you know, when I was young, I started dating through myself wholeheartedly into the romantic relationships.

All I thought was, oh, if I love someone, and they love me, love conquers all. Everything's going to be perfectly right. But what I realized was after the infatuation of falling of love faded away, and you're trying to kind of compromise in relationships, because there's money problems, there's problems about time, there's problems about personality quirks, all kinds of things. And as those problems kind of, popped up in my early relationships, I would fall back on those coping mechanisms of what I've done before in the past of like, surviving my family environment, or I saw how my family survived and how they solved problems. You know, for my grandparents, they yelled at each other a lot, and nothing would ever get soft. When you're in that kind of a situation.

And there's that uncomfortableness of seeing your grandparents argue, you know, about whatever the fight du jour was. That's the argument style, the problem, quote, unquote, solution style that I learned as a kid and, you know, there isn't anything wrong with having an argument. But if you're not are having the problem and you're not listening to another person, and you don't have those good communication and interpersonal communication skills, you're just going to be constantly arguing with people being really upset, and not getting anything solved. And that's just going to create more angst and problems for yourself. And for your partner in the relationship that you're with. Of course, if you are married, or if you are in a romantic relationship, and you also then have children, the complicated factor just grows exponentially, because then it's not just your own issues that you're dealing with.

And it's not you trying to work things out with a partner in a romantic relationship, but then you add the level of responsibility for taking care of kids lack of sleep, when they're young, the arguments that you have with your kids about the stupidest things like they don't want to put their shoes on, or they don't want to tie their shoes, or, I had a circumstance once where my young son, when he was little, I can't tell you remember, when he did this, it blew, blew my mind when I was trying to get him to daycare, and he took a shoe because I was like we gotta hurry up, I gotta get to work at a daycare and took a shift, and he threw it at me, was not happy. I just remember, you know, trying to get the shoe on him, and he's screaming at me. And, you know, these things happen when you have children. So trying to find the solutions of solving conflict and resolving problems and communicating effectively, all of that takes a lot of effort and a lot of time.

And if you don't have hope of things are going to get better. Then, again, your options are gonna stick your head in the sand, you're going to continue to deny, or you're just going to be arguing and fighting with people all the time, if that's what you choose to do, sooner or later, a relationship that you're in is probably not going to last very long. Because the person is going to get sick and tired of you know, you not willing to, you know, solve a problem with them, it's just going to be a year on a wheel that goes round and round and round and round. And that just creates all sorts of problems. So until each of us is willing to be able to make the time to one admit where our moon, our faults are, again, none of us are perfect. And then to decide to do something about it in a constructive manner.

And then three have the hope of, yes, this too shall pass, I will learn, I will grow, I can solve some of these problems. It's something that it takes effort, and it takes work to be able to do that. It's not an easy thing. So I want to talk about this today, because it's an important topic when it comes to hope. It's something that I do have near and dear to my heart, because if there isn't hope world, the world would be very bleak. You know, if there was never any hope that, let's say, a loved one could stop drinking, you know, and decides to get help, then that bleakness of wow, it's always going to be this way, it's never going to change. That's a very heavy burden to be able to bear.

You know, again, I've seen and talk with people who have shared that their loved ones drank all the way up until the end, you know, even when they were in the hospital, other relatives would sneak in alcohol, you know, for them, and they weren't able to break that addiction. And that that is unfortunately, the truth for some families. When you have hope. Again, you have to kind of weigh the, the truth of a situation. If someone is not willing to change and refuses to get help, then having false hope, could actually just create more of a problem for you.

You know, if if you stick your head in the sand and say La la la la la la la, put your fingers in your ears and nothing's ever going to change and expect something to happen in a good way. You know, that's obviously sooner or later that's going to all blow apart and it's just not going to work when it comes to false hope. If someone is unwilling to admit that they have a problem unwilling to get help, but you still have hope I can understand that. But if their behavior continues to to cause you problems and you and your family angst, then I would ask, is this healthy for you?

Again, going back to one of the early lessons of this podcast, one of those first early lessons I learned in therapy when I was in my early 20s. You got your parental voice, you know, you can't eat candy before dinner, you get your child's voice inside thinking, but I want the candy now. And then you have your adult voice, which we need to build that muscle up over time and ask, is this true? Is it healthy for me? So if you take that voice, that adult voice and apply it to a circumstance, and let's say, if a loved one continues to drink, and is not admitting they have a problem, and they're not willing to get help? And then the question is, if I have hope?

Is that good for me? Is it healthy for me? Or do I need to put a boundary down between me and this person, and when the person is looking for me to save them, or help them, I need to be strong and say, No, I can't do that. If you want me to help you, you need to help yourself, here's the number to a therapist, here's number to you know, the AAA, you know, nearest AAA meeting or whatever that is, that can be very, very difficult to do. So, yes, hope is important. But also having false hope. And using it as a, like a fairy tale, to solve our problems, when in reality, the person is not willing to admit that they have a problem, and they're not willing to get better, then having that false hope is just creating more baggage and problems for us. And that's, that's hard to admit.

Because, you know, if, if the person you're struggling with as a child, you know, that's not an easy thing, it really isn't your spouse, or your parent. It is it just isn't. No matter how much you might want to control the situation to solve somebody else's problem, you know, you might have all the best intentions. But we can't stop somebody else from drinking, it doesn't matter how much we try to hide their drugs or alcohol or take on responsibility for them. As best we can, and, you know, make excuses for their work or give them money or pay their bills or whatever. At the end of the day. We are only responsible for ourselves.

And that is another reason why I do like the Serenity Prayer. prayers aren't your thing. And if you're not into God, You just boil it down to, you know, instead of saying, The God part, you just simply say, what in my life? Am I able to control? Like, what am I responsible for? And then you say, What am I not responsible for? And then how do I know the difference between the two? And that's where you did you create that boundary between you, and either your work, or you and person you're having a problem with, because you can't take on all the responsibility that if you try, that's how you get into codependency and enmeshment. And that always turns out bad for you. Just, it creates a whole mess of problems for you. So with hope, yes, hope is wonderful.

And hope is one of the best things to have in one's heart. But it is also important to know that fine line between what is possible, and what may never come to be if the onus and the responsibility is on us. I personally have more hope in those kinds of circumstances because I know myself, if it's having hope for others, and then having that potential. Also sure the person who's drinking there's always the possibility that they might choose not to. But you do have to protect yourself and your family. You know, and I've seen situations where, you know, moms have had to cut out their parents from their, their child's life. Because of the addiction.

It's, you know, it's eaten up the family and a mother wants to protect her children and keep them from that. It's really difficult to see those kinds of things those those situations play out in families. So you might ask How do I, how do I navigate through all these complicated aspects, you know, again, journal writing, going to therapy, reading various self help books on addiction, or alcoholism or codependency, you know, there's there's ways that you can educate yourself. And there's ways that you can learn about how you grew up and how that affected you.

And I am a big proponent of attending the adult children of alcoholics meetings, or an Al Anon, because it's a good way of being able to hear the life story of others in a safe environment and not be judged. When you talk about your own background and your own challenges that you're dealing with on a day to day basis. Some of the best memories I have of my recovery from my past is being at those meetings in being able to open up myself and be honest with people, and with the many groups having the no cross talk rule, that means you're able to share your deepest thoughts, and not get feedback from people, they're not going to criticize you, they're not going to give you advice. They simply say, thank you for sharing when you're done talking. And I think that's a critical thing to make certain that if you were to go to an ACOA meeting, you want to find out if they have that crosstalk rule, because if they don't, everybody's wanting to give you free advice. And often they don't take that same free advice and use it for themselves.

So that is a critical thing to be able to, to judge when you're, you know, when you're going into a meeting, should you go to a meeting or not? Do they have that? No crosstalk rule? If they don't, then it's probably a meeting, I know, I would I would skip out on because I just don't think that would help me. I really don't need people to criticize, or give me free advice. I asked for advice when I need it. And if I haven't asked, then I don't need advice. Often, you know, just like to process a feeling and get my thoughts out to people and share it in a healthy environment so that I can then look at it, learn from it, and then decide what I'm going to do for my next steps.

So with hope, I do hope there's upon there, I do hope that you are able to see the power of hope, but also the dark side of it in that if you are throwing all your energy into a situation where you haven't built a strong boundary. Then you might want to question why that is? Is it healthy for you? Is it true that if you were to step away, everything would fall apart? You know, answering these questions can be hard, complicated, and extremely upsetting. So be easy on yourself. And remember that hope is critical for us to be able to move forward. So again, thank you for listening to this episode. If you would like to help support the show, you can visit let go and be free.com. And if any particular episode of the podcast you've enjoyed, please share it with your friends. It's a good way of helping to support the show. Or if you listen on iTunes, rate it on iTunes or if you listen on Spotify, like it on Spotify, simple things, even outside of financial contributions, to be able to help me keep the podcast going still help it in ways. So thank you again. And as always Be well.

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