The Unhooked Podcast

Quick thoughts along with tools and tips for chaos, conflict and drama...

What are your "Panic Rules"?

Emotional sobriety and tools for navigating high emotion and high (or repeated!) conflict and drama filled people, places and things.

When it comes to conflict, I have to have rules for engagement...here are a few examples!

Good question!

After being lied to, talked about, stolen from, stabbed in the back or betrayed...how do we trust again?

It's a process.

In this week's Unhooked Podcast, tools and tips from recovery... we take a look at shattered trust and how to believe in someone again.

Recording on the anniversary of losing our oldest brother as anguish and grief is fresh on my mind and surging in my memories.

A season of deep grief, pain from someone else's choices, the torment of knowing a truth no one believes...whatever it is; you are not alone.

When it comes to anguish, I know that road by heart. But I also know even as we carry scars and loss... life can become even better than before.

Nothing Changes if nothing changes. So why not change something!

How about starting with your morning routine!?

This was a tool that changed my life when I found myself in a terrible era of crisis, conflict, chaos and no solid plan or structure to handle it much less make ANYTHING better.

This is what I did...try your own version of this for 30 days and no matter what you’re going through - things will start to improve.

Morning Routine:

Wake up a little earlier (10 minutes, a half hour, make it manageable).. Get UP and out of bed! Don’t think about it.

Get on your knees to say a prayer… “God help me” or the Lord’s prayer or whatever you want to make it…

Break a sweat somehow, 50 push-ups, 50 jumping jacks, go for a run, go for a quick walk, do whatever. Just move.

Do something COLD. End your shower cold, or some type of cold plunge or exposure, your face or hands in ice water, etc. This is about pushing through every subconscious pattern and comfort that keeps in our same old rhythms.

Get these early morning breakthroughs with your comfort zone - this sets the day up strong.

Then… eat something healthy..some kind of protein.

And head into your day!

Do it. Don’t think about it, don’t work up the motivation… just do it! It will benefit every area of your life.

What do you do when you don't know what to do? Do the next right thing, add structure. You "Chop wood, carry water."

Try it for 30 days.

How it feels to have a loved one in a struggle with addiction or alcoholism...

Living in a state of chronic stress, panic and worry is destabilizing.

This can extend to include how it feels when it’s other loved ones as well… a spouse or relationship partner, a parent, sibling, a best friend, etc.

This realm of fear and anguish is so incredibly painful and will cause afflictions as well, impacting mental and physical health, expanding into every area of life; from professional, to social. It begins to cast a shadow over everyone and everything.

This is why the parents of a struggling son or daughter need recovery and support too.

There are solutions and support for the family side of the situation just like there are recovery options for anyone struggling with the heavy burden of addiction or alcoholism.

It’s important to know that family members and loved ones (the entourage) die from addiction too. Many develop health problems directly caused by living in constant stress, fear and turmoil.

When it’s been my own loved ones in active drug or alcohol use, that inferno was constantly raging within. Everything in my life was filtered through the lens of this painful state of being. Situations including anything potentially difficult or triggering were weighed against the fact that this was the burden I constantly carried. Always bracing for impact.

Finding my way to rooms and people of support, modalities of therapy that worked for me, faith in a Source greater than it all, combined with healthy and consistent self-care routines was my formula for managing.

This is what carried me through the worst valleys and hardest circumstances ofmy life.

Because that feeling… it’s no way to live.

Doing the work to recover and to be as calm, logical and healthy as possible, while trusting in Who your faith is in and navigating it one day at a time (one hour at a time some days) only…

These are the steps and tools that help.

Managing it is a process. There are people, places, things and practices that can help.

If you are living your life with this anguish and the burden of stress, fear and heartache it causes… you’re not alone. Don’t navigate this path in isolation, there are ways to manage it that provide hope and even affect the situation for the better.

We don’t have to lose our mind or wreck our health even when everything around us seems to be burning to the ground. Recovery works and it’s for everyone, just have to find your people, practices and processes. They exist!

If you don’t have a “room,” you’re welcome to come to one of mine. Please feel free to message or email me (email: [email protected]) even it’s it’s just that you need someone to remind you that you’re not alone and that how you feel matters.

While you’re “looking for your keys” (so to speak) you may find some peace and relief. And you might even find some new supportive friends who understand.

Peace, hope and recovery are possible.

If you didn't listen to the first part of the conversation with Ben just before this 2nd half, you can go back and hear it now!

OR jump right in to this episode for an interesting conversation about healing your life, why it takes some people longer to wake up to becoming healthy (and why some may never)... how to be real with what you face and how people may trigger you.

Social trauma is real! Our mind can make thoughts about it explode.

I always find it raw, authentic and helpful when hashing things out with a like minded people who strive to better themselves and keep it real when navigating life!

Check it out!

Bringing back a favorite, "My brother's friend Ben" is back with us today as we discuss experiences, strength and hope from some of the most trying times of life!

Listen to Part 1 and email your thoughts to:

[email protected]

“You work on your side of the street… and I’ll tend to mine.” I say it often in more than one of my family relationships.

It’s a way of shaking loose from old patterns of enmeshment.  I have learned if I don’t guard my time, energy, and peace, no one else will either.

Bear one another’s burdens—that’s support, kindness, empathy, safety…that’s showing up, being there.

And we don’t have to do any of it alone, when those burdens and loads become too much to bear…we have One to call upon who promises to do the heavy lifting.

Faith, hope and love,

Annie

I tend to default to “all or nothing” thinking when it comes to thoughts around family members close to my heart.  Especially if there’s any type of risk involved.  Conflict, relapse, health, death…etc.  My mind goes immediately to the scariest, most fatalistic, defeatist possibilities before I coach it back toward hope, calm and faith.

For instance…if an argument ensues and gets heated, my thoughts are often that it will be the end of the relationship, and that becomes what I believe I’m fighting for.

Realizing this inner process, I do know that often space is a good thing. 

The key is in understanding that it’s not all or nothing and doesn’t have to mean the end of everything. 

It doesn’t need to be forever or even span years and decades.  It can actually just be for a time.

Listen in to hear a recovery related perspective of taking breaks from people in our lives.

“If one person in a family or relational dynamic does work to heal, the situation is bound to improve.”

Let faith, hope and love rebuild the house.

Prayer:
Lord, help us in seasons of separation to call You down into the void, calm and comfort the emotions that rise and lead us to healing, wisdom, renovation, and restoration according to Your great love, mercy and kindness for each of us.
Peace to you,

Annie

A person struggling with an addiction, contrary to what many in a faith-based belief system may think… is not the same as a prodigal son, or an evil person. Though their behavior may align with dishonesty or wickedness at times.  They’re being tormented by evil, as much as their behavior is causing pain and torment, sorrow and damage in the lives around them.

The cycles of addiction are rarely (as in the case of the Prodigal Son in Luke chapter 15), a situation of leaving the home once…and then returning to loved ones and family for permanent restoration, with gifts and a party to celebrate!  As was the case in that story.

Receiving someone back into the home over and over with gifts and a celebration isn’t always wise when addiction is active.  This is a situation unique to any of our usual problem solving, people relating skills.  It requires lots of wisdom, patience, compassion, and the courage to set healthy boundaries as we work out our patterns of responding.

It’s a process.

SUD and addiction are complex. 

How the condition began… whether trauma, injury, experimenting or whatever the situation from which it first ignited… all are unique and complicated.  No two stories are exactly alike.

Upon realizing the tornado of substance abuse was resident in my home, I can remember in desperation turning to leaders of our church, who were clearly at a loss.  Yet several gave one-line answers regarding parenting, discipline, and directing me to the promises of Scripture that applied to sickness or the “sin” of our ordeal. 

I often sensed judgment for a lack of faith, and an attitude that a lack of “righteousness” was probably the root cause of our struggle.  Where might we (me especially) have got it wrong to incur such terrible consequence?

Never mind that John 9:2 describes a man who was sick and those wondering which sin in the family caused it were rebuked that it was for God’s glory…

Never mind Job’s friends, known as “miserable comforters,” pronouncing fault on him for his own suffering, and God rebuked those friends Job 42:7-17 directing Job to pray for them as part of his healing and restoration…

Blame and misjudgment are prevalent in many church settings.  What those dynamics have in common with the unchurched world is that they solve no problems and do no good. 

Safe, respectful accountability and kind, productive truth speaking are not the same as blame, accusation, mis-judgment and condemnation.

Not even close.

We get it so wrong in faith systems sometimes (I know I sure did, I believed my fair share of condemning notions!), we miss great opportunities to bind up one another’s wounds and offer hope, support, guidance, and healing.

The good news is that with awareness and mindfulness, we can elevate in this area and do better.

1 Corinthians 13 says “Love does not fail.”   (Love can be healthy and self-respecting).

Shame shrinks hope, wisdom and kindness open hearts.

Faith, hope and love,

Annie