"I run a recovery group that consists mostly of parents with grown adult children who struggle with addiction. What are some principles and tools you can suggest to help them know how to support their children best? How do they have conversations with their children about their addiction that would be healthy and helpful? How can they show concern for their children and genuinely ask how they are doing without causing defensiveness that they are "checking on" their children? Are the principles of holding and expressing boundaries different with this relationship dynamic? They particularly struggle with blaming themselves, and they see where they may have had a role in making mistakes as a parent that may have led to their child's addiction. What truths do they need to know to get out of blaming themselves while acknowledging hard truths?"
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2026 is going to be an awesome year. We got some pretty cool stuff coming up. First off, we got Foundations ofRecovery. This is our flagship program. We're starting it in January. This is for anyone, man, woman, or couple whowants to come and reclaim their heart from shame, trauma, and betrayal. We start off with an education on all sortsof principles. Give you the common language. We feed you from a fire hose in terms of all things recovery. It issuch a great start to recovery. And we get to the roots of things, Tyler. This isn't like any other program. Like, thisis our healing journey in process. And Foundations is where we begin. If youlook at the value that you're getting there to kick off a good recovery with all of the right education, all of theright language, and a team to get you started while also being directed by Brandon and myself through the wholeprocess. What a deal. So, we if you're interested, if you're struggling, if you've been wanting to do something fora long time, jump into this. This only comes around every so often and we would love to have you there. Click the linkin the description to sign up for it. And to make it even sweeter, we're also including a raffle for a free pass tothe Radiant Dawn retreat. Anyone who signs up for foundations will be added to the raffle for that free radiant dawnpass. If you're a man and you sign up for foundations, your name still gets entered and you can give that pass awayif you win it to any woman that you want to. So, what you're saying, Tyler, is if you sign up and participate infoundations, you could possibly go to Radiant Dawn for free. That's exactly what I'm saying, which iscrazy because Foundations by itself is already an insane value. Man, I sound so salesy,but it actually is awesome. So, come like come to Foundations. And even if you don't come to Foundations, sign upfor Radiant Dawn. I It's beyond therapy, the best healing experiences that you can have. Click the link below and comejoin us. How do I support my adult child whostruggles with addiction?What's up you guys? Welcome to the Therapy Brothers podcast. I'm Brandon. I'm Tyler. We're brothers.We're therapists. We're not afraid of your questions. So bring it.[Music]All right, Brandon, this is going to be a good topic today. Um, again, you're out on the road. You live the you livethe dream now these days. Well, you know. Yeah, your new office is the golf your new office is the golf course.Yeah, I guess so. I mean, I still work hard.Yeah. Well, We have a we have a guest today. Danielle has been willing to call,excuse me, call in. And so, uh, Danielle, welcome to the show. So glad to have you on.Thank you. I'm so glad to be here. Love the podcast. Love it. Awesome. Awesome. Well, um, why don't wejust jump in? Why don't you just share whatever background you want to share and then ask the question that you you want to talk about? We'll get into ittoday. Yeah, sure. So, I'm I'm not a therapist. I pretend to be sometimes, but I'm notlicensed by any means. Um, but I have been doing my own recovery for probablyabout five years, depending on how you look at it. Um, but I've been really deep into recovery and doing my own workfor the last three, three and a half years. Um, and through that process, Ireally wanted to give back. And so I volunteered in a church capacity to leadgroups to support um spouse and families who have somebody that they love thatstruggles with addiction. And um I have a a couple groups now and one group inparticular has has become mostly parents who have grownchildren who struggle with addiction. And so, and I've just noticed that number one, I I've been searching forpodcasts to be able to give them, and I've seen a lot of podcasts where parhow do I parent children that are like little or instill in their home um andthose kinds of things or it's a lot of like the spouse relationship. And so, I'm wanting to be able to provide apodcast to them. And so I asked you guys, knowing that you would give such great um content for me to be able tohand to these wonderful, wonderful parents who love their children so much.Uh but they struggle because the dynamics are different and they have different um you know concerns anddifferent ways of dealing with their the relationship with their child who isgrown an adult. Um, I I just first want to say that thethe the reason you may be asking this question because Danielle, you've done a lot of recovery work. You could probablyum teach a lot of people about addiction and recovery and and all those things.And maybe the reason why you're asking this question is because um it is one of the most difficult questions isas as a parent, what do you do to help an adult child overcome addiction? Itcan be it can be so challenging and so difficult. Um but there are someanswers. So hopefully we can shed some light for you and for them to reallygive some ideas and and if anything speak to the position that they're in sothat they know that it's normal and and they know that it's okay that they're feeling a lot of the the feels thatthey're feeling. Um cuz it is it it is a tough position to be in. I've workedwith a lot of parents of addicts. Um drug addiction, sex addiction, porn addiction, all kinds of addiction.Tyler, he's he he did that so much, right, Tyler? You have a lot ofexperience working with parents of addicts as well. So, um it's a it's a really good question. So, where do westart? I want I want to I want to ask you, Danielle, um you the the question is anice broad question and there is a lot that we're going to get into here today, but um and I have more questions.Cool. Yeah. So, so my my question back to you is is what are the what are the main if you were to kind of strip itdown to the main things that these parents are bringing in week in and week out? What are their biggest concerns?What are the biggest struggles? What are what are they facing that seems to come in week in and week out?Okay. I have like five different things, but we'll strip it down and you tell me how much time we have. Um, when I seesomebody first come in to a meeting, maybe they maybe they just found outbecause a lot of times it's been a secret. Maybe they're they've had their child out of the home for a very longtime and had no idea that this that their child had struggled with addictionprobably from a young age. Um, so a lot of things that they'll have to deal withis like the shame and the confusion of how did I not know? How did I not knowthat this was happening? And then I've heard when they that they are quiteisolated because there is so much shame around I parented this child and nowthey are struggling with this huge thing and there's so much stigma still aroundaddiction. So they feel like they are going to be judged and and then when they have been vulnerable sometimesthey'll get really um hurtful things said back to them. One of the ones I'veheard recently was like do you wish you would have never had them? Yeah. Which is hard. Um and you know like howdid you not know that this was happening in your home? Like those kinds of things. So, when I first see somebodycome in, and I know that we talked about like wanting to really normalize um how that how normal this is and toknow help them know that they're not alone. I'd love for you guys to speak to that if you could.Sure. It's it's funny how I think that that's maybe one of the biggest things that that parents bring in all the timeis shame breeds shame. So, if there's a child who's struggling and based off ofshame, they've got an addiction that they've hidden for a while and all of a sudden it comes to light, then that the shame almost like jumps over onto theparents and the parents now go, "How could I be so foolish? And how was I so dumb? And this is probably my fault.What did I do to wound my child?" Like, "What did what did where did I go wrong?" um the shame then starts tobreed more shame and then they a parent is not likely to actually seek out help and support because they're worried thatthey're a bad parent as well now too. And so what the very thing that their child was doing they now start to dothemselves and it and it just sort of like is this this cycle of continualshame where we're both just rolling around in it, me and my child. And we're never actually able to get the broaderperspective or context of saying, "Hold on a minute." Like addiction is a massive thing in our world. Like you youcould look left or right at your neighbors and there's a pretty good chance that one of your neighbors is struggling with with something verysimilar to what you're going through. And um and we never get a chance to see that context because we're so busycovering up our own feelings of shame and feeling like, "Oh no, I'm I'm there must be something wrong with me or I'mterrible. I must have been a bad parent." Um the the Danielle, do you have kids?Yes. Yeah. How many kids do you have? I've got two. I've got a seven-year-old and a four-year-old.Oh, you're busy. So, if you have a seven-year-old and afour-year-old, then you're you're getting pretty well verssed in the the fact that um as a parent, you're alwaysfailing. Um I remember the day when I had that justall of a sudden understanding of, oh my goodness, I judged my parents for not being perfect and wow, I've justrealized that I'm never going to do this perfectly. No. No. And no parent does. And and Ithink, you know, most parents do the best they can. And sometimes the best they can um isn't great. And um andthere are consequences for the kids because the parents aren't great. And a lot of times they're doing what theywere taught by their parents. And and but here's my point is that um asparents, we are going to screw up and we're going to make mistakes and thosemistakes are going to hurt our kids and and I actually do believe sometimes those mistakes really propel our kidsinto things like addiction and and and things like depression and anxiety andand I don't think we can take it all on us, but the reality is is that our imperfections affect our kids. Um, butcan we be able to say, "Look, I I really am doing the best I can. the things I'vedone have hurt my kids and I need to provide or or or I need to allow somegrace and forgiveness for myself um and love and compassion for mystruggles so that I don't have to continually beat myself up over and overagain because my child is suffering because to me that's hell like what thepain of my children what's worse than that and if I think that that I've inflicted thatand and I sit in that and I wallow in that that is so hard and I've got to be able to say, you know what, like like Ireally truly need to forgive myself and accept my imperfections here so that sothat I'm not spinning in my shame over and over and over again. Absolutely.Easier said than done. Yeah. Go ahead. Question kind of in that vein. So, I don't know that that if we've talkedabout it, yes, it being normal and moving on and you can circle me back if you want to, but I just have so manyquestions for you guys. Um but I do see where okay so I've been studying thisthe grief process in my own recovery and um there's this piece of anger that wehave to get through and I have seen where yes some some parents have feltanger at the situation or even at their child's behavior because it's creating consequences in their lives that theyare just heartbroken about. But then of course they immediately they felt shame and guilt for feeling angry at theirchild or I have seen it where they absolutely put off that anger altogether but I'veseen it where they take that anger and they place it on themselves instead. So they project that anger onto themselves.And so I wondered if you could speak to that. How do they not get stuck in that blaming themselves? because I have hadpeople I have people in my group who have been doing this for 20 years and they're still in that struggle.I I think Brandon brings up a good point to the to the question you just asked with what he was saying and Brandon, I'mgoing to I'm going to make it simple for what you were saying is one of the ways to freedom here is to find the placewhere you can take accountability and own it and then be able to surrender therest and allow yourself to be to experience compassion and grace. the same way you hope that your child willexperience compassion and grace because at the end of the day, we're all we're all totally human. And and to yourquestion, that grieving process is interesting. When you have a child who when you have an adult child who's gotan addiction, it's not like it's not like your typical grieving process where you lose someone and they die and thenyou kind of go through those stages of grief and you go through anger and bargaining and depression. When you've got an addicted child, you cycle throughthat a hundred times over before before you or they die. And it's it's anongoing process where you you get hope and you think, "Oh, maybe there's a turnaround here. Maybe this is the chance it's going to be different." Andthen all of a sudden it's back to the same old things that it used to be. And you're right back feeling like youstarted over again. And that anger is that anger is something that I think needs to be like validated as hey thisis part of the process. The anger I have towards myself. The anger I have towards my child. It's okay for me to be angryat myself or my child and I can still love my child. Um I I've got a reallygood friend who's got a son who's currently in uh in the drug courts andthis is the best he's ever done. He's been addicted for probably 10 or 15 years. He's finally gotten into thelegal system and he's finally getting sober and they're kind of getting more and more hope. He's been sober foralmost a year now. And um he he overdosed and relapsed just a coupleweeks ago and instantly what happens to those parents? It's all back to all is lost. I can'tbelieve it. What do we do now? Do we kick him out of our house? Do we send him to prison? Like what what happensnow? And I'm so frustrated because now I've opened my heart again and I've given them another chance and now they've gone and stopped on my heartagain. And you know, it's just that's a normal part of the process. And so I think it takes an insane amount of wecall it in our practice we refer to it as ridiculous patience with ourselvesand with our child where it's ridiculous. Like when you think you've been patient, when you've been kind and offered grace to yourself and yourchild, you've just started. It's ridiculous. Um because that's what it that's what it demands when you're aparent because you can kind of shut it off and say, "Oh, I'm not going to care anymore or they're dead to me." It onlytakes a couple of months before that heart of a parent comes back and says, "I really wish the best for them. I wantto support them. I want to figure out how to help them." And and the struggle is then like how do I best help my childwhile I'm still dealing with that anger that I've got, but but I still have that love for them. And what is actuallyhelping versus hurting? And maybe that's another question we we'll get into in a sec, but it's normal. And I thinkthere's there's a lot of room for grace and patience in this process.the the uh what Tyler's saying and and Danielle, I know you've been throughthis yourself um in your own work, but there's this real I I don't know why Goddoes this this way uh exactly, but there's this real paradoxical nature toto healing and it's we naturallyuh run from pain or um avoid it and um anger is a secondaryemot emotion. Anger is a part of grief, but behind that anger is some real hurt,some real sadness, and some real fear. And if we want out of that anger,whether it's anger at oursel or anger at our child, then the way out is to stepin and to to sit in it some, to process it, to allow yourself to feel it. And ifif you're shooting yourself out of the anger or like I shouldn't feel angry, I shouldn't feel angry, then you're goingto stay angry. um you know or if you're pretending like that anger is not there but it is thenyou're going to stay angry. And so the paradoxical nature is we we we thinkthat we're not supposed to feel it. We think that that we're not healing if we do. And the way to healing is toactually allow yourself to heal it and to process it. Um so cancan I highlight something that you said? Yeah. Um, so I really liked it when you said that if we put if we try to ignorethe anger and put it off that we'll stay in it. Um, and I've seen especially inChristian culture um, and in like the church that I am in where anger is notof God, right? But I I now I I disagree with that because I believe God feelsall the emotions. Um, but you think Okay, thank you. Um, and I'mjust seeing it where people if they feel angry, they feel that shame, they feellike this is not something I should feel, so they should on themselves and they try to push it away because theyneed to re-engage and be able to show up as a dad without any anger havingespecially especially as a parent, right, Danielle? Like I'm not supposed to feel angertoward my son who's addicted to drugs. It's like that's so selfish of me. I shouldn't feel that. Well, the truth isis I'm scared for him and and I'm or or I'm really really sad and and so behindthat anger is some some real actual love for my child and but I won't get to thatlove and my child won't feel that love unless I say it's okay to feel thisanger that that I'm I'm in right now. If I could if I could add to that, you know, if we were to use the Christianperspective for just a minute, you know, we know that God is love. And yet you read in all of the all of the scripturaltexts, my wrath is kindled against you. I'm angry. Uh the Lord seeth fit tochasen his people. Like there is a there is a way for love to still have room foranger. And um and sometimes sometimes we mess that up as people because like ouranger leads to pretty poor decisions sometimes because it's not done from a place of love. It's it's gone into thatsecondary place that Brandon's talking about. But but we're lying to ourselves if that's not part of our humancondition. And anytime anytime somebody does something against our values, especially the people that we most love,one of the natural responses, the protective responses is anger. And and so yeah, we need to probably be carefulwith how we respond in anger. And I like where Brandon's going that we should use that as maybe a sign to look deeper andsay what's behind it. Um because often what's behind it is what really needs to be addressed, but we shouldn't dismissit. It should be used as a signal instead of uh instead of villainized aspart of the process. Yeah, definitely. And I think it does come from mostly from fear because withwith their addiction most of the time as being a you know an adult theiraddiction is probably progressed quite far. And so they may be looking atconsequences that are quite big like death, insanity, jail, like those bigconsequences. And so, of course, that's going to bring up so much fear, which as just a defense and having that secondarymotion of anger come up, totally makes sense. Yeah. I want to um going along with withwhat you're saying, Danielle, I want to I want to kind of shift gears a little bit and throw a question out to youguys. Um because I think this dilemma is the dilemma that that parents of addictsreally struggle with. And and I think if we can kind of analyze it or chew it up, maybe it could help. But and it's it'sthe tough love thing, right? Where um you know, as a parent, you get in thisplace of do I do I keep them comfortable in their addiction or do I do I reallyhold some boundaries and that leads to some crazy things like my child being homeless or overdosing orwhatever. And I I had a years ago I had a client who was the nicest guy, justthe most humble, nicest guy who had a horrible alcohol problem. And he wasliving in his parents' basement and he was drinking all day long, drinking, drinking, drinking. And his parents camein and they were the most loving, kindest. And they loved their son because their son was such a good guy,right? But this this darn addiction was there like just destroying him. And he hated it and theyhated it. And um he uh they came in. He herealized he said, "My parents are enabling me here because I just sit in their basement. I I don't have to payrent. All I have to do is buy alcohol." And so they came to this agreement of,"Hey, if you if you drink again in our basement, we're going to have to ask you to leave." Andhe went a few days and sure enough he started drinking in the in the basement. He spent a whole day drinking. And sothe next day he he humbly accepted that they asked him to leave. And so hepacked up his bags and and went and overdosed and killed himself.And um the parents were devastated and the parents came to me and they andthey were like I don't think we did the right thing. Our son's dead now. Um,what do you guys think, Randon? That's is this is the question.This is the question for parents of adult children who have addiction is like um and I don't know that there's aright answer to this, Brandon. I think it's it truly is this is between the parents and God, but there are someprinciples here that need to be discussed and talked about and signed up for depending on what side you fall on.So, so the the example you gave, Brandon, I I can't tell you how many hundreds of times I've heard similar things whereit's like, well, if I kick him out, you know, how many parents, Brandon, do you know that have adult children living in their basement right now and they won'tkick him out because they're afraid they'll go overdose? Like, oh, I Yeah, that's that's that is thething, right? So, then you have a parent come into your office and they're complaining to you and saying, "Yeah, I don't know how he's ever going to get better." And you're like, "Um, there'sno consequence for his choices right now." You're basically buying his drugs. Yeah. You basic you basically aresupporting his addiction and they're like, "Yeah, but if we if we kick him out, then he's going to go overdose and he'll probably die." And and the thetruth is is that these are hard things because, you know, when you get when you get that far gone, when you're that farinto that situation, it's like there are really some real consequences. is likewhen I worked for the drug courts of southeastern Idaho, it it it would end with an overdose or it end with thelegal system or it would end with rock bottom and massive change or it would end with suicide. And those were thosewere the four options. And so when a parent looks at those things and goes, geez, like man, the odds are terrible.I'd rather I'd rather just watch him die a slow death in my basement and feel like I was loving him than to have himgo out and make choices that are going to come. You can't blame a parent with massive consequences. I don't blamea parent at all. But what I what I will say to a parent is is that the parent needs to know that they're signing upfor all of the other consequences that come from having your child stay in the basement and you pay for their housingand their drugs and everything else while they live a slow death. just just sign up for it and and accept thatthat's what you're going to do instead of being upset or resentful or or angry about it because at the end of the daythat's the choice you're making to keep them in your basement versus you know the risk of saying hey son that thatexample that you gave Brandon my heart aches for those parents because I tend to lean towards the side of saying Iknow their hearts were good I know that they were trying to to be helpful and the truth is they probably maybe did theright thing principally speaking, you know, like they they set they set boundaries. Theywere loving. They said, "Hey, son, like you got to go figure this out. We can't continue to help you watch you. We can'tcontinue to watch your life unravel in front of our eyes and feel like we're part of the problem." And then he goes and he does these things. You can seetheir pain and you can say maybe they did the wrong thing. But on the other hand, they were they were acting according to true principle. Well, butbut Tyler, so I absolutely to to be honest with you, I reallyquestioned whether I wanted to continue to be a therapist after that. Like because I had counseledled them to gothrough that process and then that's what happened. And and so I, you know, Iwasn't the parents, but I was definitely a part of this whole boundary thing. and and I had to soulsearch and and say tomyself that yes, like my counsel was was spot on, that I was actually fightingfor his life and and I I was speaking truth and and I believe that the parentsin in actually holding that boundary were fighting for their son, too. And itwas a risk and it backfired. But in in the end, like I think that it was the itwas the best shot that they had. And and so like you know it what you're saying, Tyler,you're saying it's truth and I always heer on the side of step into truth evenif it's hard rather than live in denial and um and avoid uh the hard reality. And and sothat that's the only way forward. Danielle, you got a comment? Yeah, I just wanted to say something first offthat yes, I just want to say that is so hard, but I I do know that this is astory that happens that where parents are trying to get healthy and and my comment was I feel like those parentswhat they're what they're doing is inviting their child to get healthy and also inviting them to have a healthyrelationship. If you really break it down to relationship dynamics, you're you areallow you are inviting them to become a healthier them. But those consequences are hard. Andit's it is hard when they don't choose or when they don't choose the help.I think I think that's the biggest thing here is is that we often forget thatevery single individual in the equation has choice. And as parents, we often wetake more responsibility for our children's choices than we can and should. And when those and when those decisionshappen, we define ourselves as success or failures based off of our children's choices. And that alsothat's not the right necessarily the right measuring stick. It kind of makes me sick. You know, we when we get peoplecome to us like, "Oh, you guys must be awesome parents. Your kids did this and this. They're so amazing." It's like, well, actually, I know lots of parentswho do the same things and their kids don't do that and that, you know? So it's it's not the outcome of the choice of the child that makes you a goodparent. It's it's truly the work from the inside out of saying do I have a set of principles that I believe in and thatI live by and that I try to teach my child. Do I allow them to make choices and experience consequences for thosechoices and do I love them through that all the while? And and if that's thecase then that's becomes like Brandon those parents I feel so bad for your those parents because they were goodparents like you know like and they and they they had the outcome that was justexcruciating and rip your rips your soul out to think about it but at the end of the day they were still good parents.Yeah, you know, I you know, Tyler, I when I worked in the kind of the system, the courtsystem, um I I did this intake and it was this mom who had never done drugsand she was coming into treatment for a drug charge and I was like, "What what's the what in the world is happening?"Well, she was out buying drugs. She was out buying heroin for her son and gotbusted for buying heroin. And um and I was asking her, I'm like, "Why? What areyou doing?" She's like, "At least I knew what he was getting. At least I I like Iknew what he was getting. I could kind of give him the dose and I knew it was clean stuff." And like, so that that'sthe other end of the spectrum, right? There's the parent saying, "You can't live in my basement and then there's the parent there's the mom out buying heroinfor her son." Um, you know, and to me there it's it's it'sclear as day to me what fighting for your child is. in in in in thosescenarios. Um it's it's not the she is she is killing her son,but she but she can't tolerate the thought of losing him to death. So she would rather eat that herself and notfeel guilty about the fact that he might die. And Brandon, I want to tell you a small story like really really just withwhat you were saying. When I was on uh my LDS mission in Baltimore, Maryland, we were teaching a woman and she had aheroin addiction. And uh she was trying to get into rehab, butshe couldn't get into rehab because there was a waiting list. And so I I took some of my money and I boughtheroin for like three days. And uh at juston my on my on my church mission, I bought heroin for three days to get her to get her her fix until she could getinto rehab. and then she got into rehab and I never saw her again. Um, and I felt so terribly guilty about that, buton on a certain level like I can relate to like what a parent imagine with me aslike some stupid missionary, but what what about a parent who has their child going through that? It's like holy cow.Like I can totally see why a parent would be on the street buying heroin for their child. I just also think they needto understand what you're saying, Brand, is that what they're doing is they're giving their child a slow dose ofpoison. They're preventing them from being able to have a chance to grow into full adulthood. And eventually thatchild is going to go down to the rock bottom one way or the other. And if you don't want to feel guilty about it,that's fine. But you have to acknowledge that that's what you're doing when you go and buy heroin for your child.Right. Right. Yeah. And then just is it I've seen it a lotwhere they might not have like that close relationship with their with their child. Their child keeps them reallyreally far away. So they have no idea how they're how they're doing or what they're doing, but they have them pop upwhen they need money. Yeah. And that's that's a struggle. So, it'smy overall question when I first started this and then I came up with more questions was how do I support my childwho struggles with this and and so I know that you guys are talking about love, you're talking about boundaries, you're talking about these differentthings, but I can you speak more to like that writing that line and what is love look like?Could Could I give an example? Would that be all right? I've got my I'm goingto kind of tell a story and I hope it's okay with my my my partner Chase, but uh Chase struggled with some addictions inhis life. And my wife is a perfect example of what your question is over the years of the struggles that he wouldgo through periodically. He'd call up and he'd need money or he would, you know, need something. And and every timemy wife would sit and have this conversation with him and it sounded something like this, she'd listen to him. She'd say, 'Wow, Chase, I love youso much. I can tell you're in a really bad spot. I care so much about you, and if I could help you, I would. And if youwanted to move out to Utah and live with us for a minute while you got your feet under you and played by our rules, I'dlove to do that. But I'm not going to send you money. What you're doing is against my values. I don't think I'd behelping you. I love you. And then she'd hang up the phone and then she'd cry forlike three or four hours. Um, but just I just thought, you know, her example wassuch a beautiful example of the balance between love and boundary where, youknow, hey, I love you and these are the ways that I can support you and these are the ways that I won't support youbecause I don't believe I'm going to be doing any good for you. And uh, and Ithink that's that's the essence that you're going for is to find but you have to you have to be in touch with whatyour values are in order to to ride that line, you know. So Rihanna knew what her values were. She could stick to thosevalues and she knew she loved her brother desperately and she achd forhim. Um but go ahead Brandon. Well I just she's a good example of ofwhat I'm going to say here which is healthy boundaries when they're actuallyhealthy boundaries. They're acting in authenticity and and in your real values are showing up with love. So, um I had aclient who's he when he was 14, his mom found a bunch of porn under his uh bedor whatever. And so she thought she'd do him a favor and she beat him up becauseshe's going to teach him a lesson about that being bad. um that's not that she's controlling andand um she's not showing up connecting to her son in any way. And and so youlike there's that side of the fence, right? Um where you're overlypunishing and trying to control them not to do it by forcing them. That's notlove. Um, and Brandon, most of most of the time that side of the fence is driven from aselfish place instead of a selfless place, too. It's driven from their own feeling of not being a success or beinga failure as a parent, which is exactly what was happening. You know, she was very rigid in herreligious beliefs and she was she was she was sick that her son would do sucha thing. And, you know, um, which by the way, her beating him up just drove hisaddiction further underground. and and perpetuated the whole thing. Um, butthen there's the other side of things, you know, if my if my daughter, say, came in my house and she was addicted todrugs and she stole everything and um, she stole a bunch of money andeverything from me. When she came back the next time, I can do what Tyler'swife did and say, "I love you so much. you're, you know, but love might be I'm sorry, but you can't come in our houseright now until I have trust again or until I feel like there's some recovery there. Um, so, so I can still be lovingin my heart. My heart cannot be at war. I can have compassion for her and I canstill be boundaried at the same time. So, does that make sense, Danielle? Totally. And I have um kind of aquestion that goes within that, I think. Um I have seen where you have twoparents who want to try to execute things differently and that affectstheir marriage. Um where one wants to do maybe more tough love and wants to holdboundaries and is saying like I don't think we should allow them in our home and I don't think we should give themany more money. And then this parent is just they're dealing with their own grief and their own their own hard timeand so they're wanting to maybe give more and that creates like friction intheir own marriage dynamics. Do you guys have any Can you speak to that? Is there any What are you talking about, Daniel?Addiction addiction never polarizes marriages and relationship. Hard. There's no chaos with addictions.Oh my gosh. It's every time all the time with with parents and um and and and itreally is to me why help is so important. Education together um gettinginvolved in Alanon, Essinon, education together so that you can get on the samepage because it is so tricky and nuanced and and all those things. So if you doget that support and education together, you can come back to that and say, "Yes, like this. Let's do this because this iswhat together we're supposed to do." Um, but it will if you have an an an addictchild, it will test every part of your relationship. Absolutely. And and I think what happensis that you get the balance of if we're looking at the ideal parent, the ideal parent balances boundaries and structurewith heavy love. And sometimes the parents sort of personify each side of that. And and what what goes on is isthat the loving parent sees the boundaries as harsh and so they go more loving and then the boundary personsays, "Whoa, you're being too easy, so I got to go harder." And pretty soon you're getting justice and mercy from two different people. But it doesn'twork that way because then the the mercy person is slide money out the back door and like, "Hey, don't tell your mom."And the mom's like, "Golly, you're always letting them off the hook. Like, do you realize what you're doing?" And pretty soon you got a marriage problemon top of on top of just the addiction problem. And and that's what Brandon'ssaying is so important is I need to get we both need to get educated. We need to learn the same language and then we needto learn how to communicate with each other in a principled way so that we're coming back to instead of letting it getpersonal, it's got to be based on principles. like how are we going to balance love and boundaries andstructure? Like we've got to agree on the fact that both of those things need to be in place instead of each personlike doing one or the other because that's that really does end up with really strained marriages and thenthat's more pain and there's more burnout and and everything else that goes with it.Um, I just really liked I don't I know if somebody's listening to this, they couldn't see visually what what you weredoing, but like with your hands you were saying when somebody does more love and somebody does more boundaries, you couldsee that those two people are like disconnecting from each other. They're going farther away. And in withaddiction with with a child that you both love, it seems like you would want to I love that you're saying geteducated because then you guys can learn what does healthy boundaries look like? What does how do I support my my grownadult child? Um and and you become together and then you're able to be moreunified. And that's something that I I just want to say from my own experience having done my work. I know my childrenare young, but going to therapy has been more beneficial for me as a parent. I'vebeen working on my own ch my own childhood things, but it's been so beneficial for me and I've changed howI've parented based on working my own trauma that I had in my childhood. And Idon't I I haven't seen as as much depending on the generation of themmaybe seeking out therapy. And I just think that that would be so wonderful if they could do their work and that theirwork not not just based on fixing their relationship with their child, supporting their child, but really abouttheir own stuff because when we heal that, we don't have the the shamescreens that come up. You know, when people have come and say, "Oh my goodness, like you have a child ofaddiction. You've done your work. You know where your stand." And because of that, you can hold things differentlyand you're able to hold um the hard stuff for your kids and have those harddiscussions without your own shame coming into the picture. And I think that's the biggest benefit.I think that old adage is true that if you want to support your kids, then gethealthy yourself. Like there that's that's it. Like that. And and I absolutely appreciate parents that comein when I meet with them. I'll do an intake and they they come in and theydon't say, "How do we get them to stop?" They say, "We want to work on us so thatwe know how to navigate this." Um, we want to we want to make sure that we're on the same page together as a couple,as a marriage. Um, we want to make sure that that we're like really doing whatwe can to show up as healthy as possible. And it's those parents thatreally can can thrive and navigate. the parents that that want to just get theirchild to stop and don't want to really deal with it, they it doesn't work. And so I really appreciate what you'resaying, Danielle, because you're spot on. You want to help your child, you might have to work on some of your hardest stuff. Work on your own shame.Um work on your own lack of of boundaries and fear of boundaries and and poor attachments in your in your ownlife. And then you'll show up powerful and connected to your to your child andsupport them. It sounds weird to be safe. It sounds weird that the best way tohelp your child is to become more shame resilient yourself, but that's simply the truth because shame resiliency, ityields less obvious, obviously shame, but it also yields the ability to havebetter boundaries because we allow ourselves to be treated right up to the level that we believe we're worthy ofbeing treated. And when we are resilient to our shame, all of a sudden our ability to hold those boundaries andthose values increases itself. And we can do it from a place of love instead of a place of fear. And and thoseboundaries held in love because I'm shame resilient, they speak differently than a boundary that's made out of fearto a child. Yeah. Yeah. And just just giving my own example, my my daughter the other day, um I wastalking with her and trying to explain something that she wasn't hear wasn't hearing. She wasn't understanding. Andmy my words were kind, but my face was kind of like, can can you not understandthis? And she got angry and wanted and wanted to walk away from me because Iwas hurting her with my facial expression. And I caught it and I realized it and I said, "Oh, honey, diddid mommy's face tell you something? Did Did it bring up shame? We've talked about shame. We actually talk about it.And what does shame test say to us and things like that?" And she said, "Yeah, it really hurt my feelings and it mademe feel like this when when there was kids at school who were not kind to her." And I said, "I want you to tell meanytime that my face does that and it hurts your feelings and I want you to be able to talk to me about it." And I think it's being that safe that safeparent. Um, I've learned, you know, I've I've dealt with addictions as a childand I've dealt with it as an adult and I and and especially in my adult relationship when I was able to be safe,meaning that I was approachable that I wasn't, you know, bringing up my defenses and the thing as soon assomething was said to me that maybe was hard to hear, that I wasn't putting updefenses, I was really sitting there and able to listen. And I think that that's what therapy has given to me to be ableto show up as a safe parent to teach me those principles which is awesome. You know what a hard thing is though asyou're talking about parenting and and and showing up safe for our kids and umI'm just thinking right now my kids are up at a lake and and I just made them all put on life jackets. Um, c if I wereto ask you guys, Tyler, Danielle, both of you, um, can you control your spouse?Nope. Danielle's shaking her head like automatically, no. Tyler, can you control Rian? No. Of course not.But it's obvious when I ask that question, right? It's like, can I can we control our spouses? No. In fact, infact, it's unhealthy if we if we try to if we try to. But when it comes to our children,um, we, you know, when they're young, there's an there's a level of structureand we could even go as far to say control that we have over our children.And and so when an adult child grows up and they're acting out with addiction,we still have this part of us as parents to say like, okay, like I'm going to get this to stop. And the fact of the matteris if they're an adult child, the truth is is you can't control them. Um that'sdone. That's it's that part of life is over now. And that they're like your spouse in that way that you can'tcontrol them. And so then you shift from trying to put the structure in the control. And you you you try to figureout how to have healthy attachment and love with them so that you can support them. And there's a difference betweensupporting them and trying to force them and control them. And I think that'sreally hard for a parent to understand. That makes sense.Yeah. Well, Danielle, we we're getting up close to our time slot. Any lastthoughts or questions that you wanted to ask? No, I think that that I think weactually through the flow of it, we touched on so many different things. I just really really appreciate it. I knowthat this will speak to so many people um in my group, but I'm hoping it willbe something for, you know, people who are are a parent and are looking forhelp and they don't know where to go and what to do and they might be sitting in that isolated spot to just maybe seekhelp and then, you know, learn and get educated on how to be able to hold spacefor their children, how to be able to to surrender and not con not not controland but also create and cultivate happiness in their lives. I really do see them sometimes this overtakes theirlives and they it it's the one thing that they can that they focus on and itit really takes away from the rest of their lives too. And I don't want them to have that. I want them to be able toto yes, my child struggles with this and I love them and I'm going to supportthem in this way and I'm also worthy of having a happy and joyful life, too.That's that's awesome. That's a great that's a great last thought, Danielle. Thank you so much for your willingnessto come on and share yourself and your questions this way. Um, you asked some really good questions that I know reallytug at the heartstrings of a lot of parents. So, um, if you guys are listening to this and you know someonewho has an adult child who might be struggling, uh, please pass this along and help them to get the resources thatthey need because it is something that isn't readily available to a lot of people. Uh, Kyler, can I say one last thing? Um,I just want to I just want to acknowledge um you Danielle for you'vebeen through some hard stuff and uh personally and you're working through your recovery and I just want to noticehow you're how you're taking the the the crap and turning it into somethingbeautiful and you're helping people and you're facilitating groups and you're here with us asking questions about forparents and I just really want to applaud you. It's just awesome to see somebody take a hold of recovery andturn it into more than just about them and their healing. And so, thank you,Danielle. I really appreciate it. Absolutely. It's been healing. It's been a part of my healing process to be ableto help others. I said, "All this stuff happened to me and I've learned so much and I have all these resources and Idon't want that to go to go to waste. I want to help people." Um, but yeah, it's it's been a big huge healing piece andand I know David Kesler, you know, who's worked with Elizabeth Kubler Ross on thetransition of grief, added that sixth step of finding purpose and I reallyhave taken that and I really want to do something. I want to be a part of this recovery world because for me, recoverywas one of the biggest answers I could have ever had. So, I'm just so grateful for all the content you guys put outbecause that's where I started. I started in isolation listening to y'all to you guys and your podcast andstarting to implement it and then I got brave enough to um to get into therapyand that's really where things progressed. Well, don't stop. Keep going.You're doing awesome. Thank you. Thank you so much. Yeah. Thanks for coming on, Danielle.All right. I appreciate it. If you if you guys have questions, go to therapybros.com and submit them. You'remore likely to get on the show if you want to come on and talk, but if you can also submit a written question, we'll try to get to it when we uh when we can.So, um thank you guys. Have an awesome week. [Applause][Applause] [Music]