[00:00:01] Spencer: How has your recovery informed your creativity? Join us as Katie and Karen share their experience.

[00:00:08] Welcome to episode 431 of the Recovery Show. This episode is brought to you by Susan, Tenna, anonymous, and David. They used the donation button on our website. Thank you Susan, Tenna, anonymous, and David for your generous contributions. This episode is for you.

[00:00:25] We are friends and family members of alcoholics and addicts who have found a path to serenity and happiness. We who live or have lived with the seemingly hopeless problem of addiction understand as perhaps few others can. So much depends on our own attitudes, and we believe that changed attitudes can aid recovery.

[00:00:42] Katie P: Before we begin, we would like to state that in the show we represent ourselves rather than any 12 step program. During the show, we'll share our own experiences. The opinions expressed here are strictly those of the person who gave them. Take what you like and leave the rest. We hope that you will find something in our sharing that speaks to your life.

[00:01:00] Spencer: My name is Spencer. I'm your host today, and joining me today are Katie and Karen. Welcome to the Recovery Show.

[00:01:07] Karen B: Hi. Yay. Hi. We're so happy to be here.

[00:01:10] Spencer: We'll open with a reading that you chose. Karen, you gonna read that?

[00:01:14] Karen B: sure. It's from Courage to Change. page 41. One of the effects of alcoholism is that many of us have denied or devalued our talents, feelings, achievements, and desires. In Al-Anon, we learn to know, appreciate, and express our true selves. Creativity is a powerful way to celebrate who we are. it's spiritual energy that nourishes our vitality. It is a way to replace negative thinking with positive action.

[00:01:46] Every one of us is brimming with imagination, but it often takes practice to find it and put it to use. Yet anything we do in a new way can be creative. Building a bookcase, trying a new seasoning on a vegetable, taking a new approach to handling finances, finger painting, problem solving, tapping out a rhythm on a tabletop creative energy is within us and all around us. Whether we are writing a masterpiece or folding the laundry.

[00:02:15] Every original act asserts. Our commitment to living our program encourages us to acknowledge our achievements and to live each day fully. When we create, we plant ourselves firmly in the moment and teach ourselves that what we do matters.

[00:02:32] Spencer: And that page 41, that's gonna be what, February 10th,

[00:02:37] Karen B: you got it. Woo.

[00:02:39] Katie P: Impressive

[00:02:40] Karen B: first couple of months I can still do the math and after that it's like, no way. That was amazing. You weren't looking at the book.

[00:02:47] Spencer: No, it was like, January's got 31 days. Okay, so take 31 outta 41 you got 10.

[00:02:51] Karen B: are in the presence of something beyond.

[00:02:55] Katie P: our skillset.

[00:02:57] Spencer: I was a math major in college, so I hope I can do arithmetic.

Recovery and Creativity

[00:03:01] Spencer: So you guys reached out and said, we'd like to talk about how our recovery has informed our creativity. I understand you're both singer songwriters.

[00:03:10] Karen B: Right.

[00:03:11] Spencer: You wanted to start out by telling a little bit of your own stories

[00:03:15] of recovery, and I'll let you decide who's going first.

[00:03:19] Karen B: The summary,of my story is, I grew up in, in an alcoholic home and I had a problem with my father's drinking. So I really grew up just totally learning deep into my bones, those coping mechanisms that are very common to alcoholic households.

[00:03:38] I learned how to, hyper focus on everyone else. and to be hypervigilant as I did that, and to basically be whoever was needed. Whatever was needed around me, I morphed into that. And I, I enjoyed that. I think I enjoyed being a helper. I enjoyed, that role, but that was kind of the only way that I could, relate with the family and kind of feel like I was, I felt like I was holding things together. I, I carried that into my adult life and it fit really nicely with the teaching profession. For over 20 years I was off and on. I was either a high school Spanish teacher or an adult ESL teacher. It's very easy for the four M's with teaching, you know, managing and manipulating martyrdom, mothering, it's so easy. It felt like home, being able to do all of that within the profession until it destroyed me and I had nothing left. because I was using these old coping mechanisms. And of course I took those into my marriages. In my first marriage, and this current one,I'm working on that here every day. for sure. I started with recovery process in my early twenties, going to some, I think it was ACA, adult children of alcoholics. You know, I, I was starting to go like, oh, this may have affected me more than I thought it, it did.

[00:04:58] I was in a church group, a college, church group, and the leader was like, you might wanna try ACA. And

[00:05:05] yeah.

[00:05:05] Spencer: Wow.

[00:05:07] Karen B: And at that time I was an obedient little churchgoer, so I was like, okay. And so I did it. And it was a good message.

[00:05:14] That started me, and then later I got into program because I was trying to help my sister. Like typical codependent fun, where I was like, my sister's thinking about going to meetings. So if I go, then she'll go.

[00:05:28] Spencer: Ah, yes. Yes,

[00:05:31] Karen B: yeah.

[00:05:31] Spencer: I have a friend, that's how he came into Al-Anon. He was trying to help his sister.

[00:05:35] Karen B: Yep. Oh yeah.

[00:05:37] Katie P: Tale as old as time.

[00:05:38] Karen B: It, really is. nonetheless, it got me through the door, and I stayed and now I've got, I think I'm gonna get like my 21 years or something like that, coming up, which is pretty cool. And, it's just been the last 10 years, I'd say, having a sponsor and working with that person, over the course of those years, whenever I could in my busy life with being a mother and teaching full time and doing music. Things significantly shifted, for me during those 10 years and I've experienced more recovery than I ever dreamed possible.

[00:06:13] I went absolutely like the promises, say from hopeless to having hope and things that I thought could never change, did change, through that ongoing process. And through music then I met Katie, and then we also have. recovery stuff together too with Al-Anon,

[00:06:29] Spencer: All right. A not unfamiliar story. How about you, Katie?

[00:06:34] Katie P: Karen actually brought me to Al-Anon, so that's part of why I wanted her to go first to set the stage. similar to Karen, I also come from a family that has been impacted by substance use. Down the line.

[00:06:46] Like there's a whole branch of the family tree that's essentially a stump because people died in their forties from cirrhosis of the liver. I've always had an awareness of it and my dad, one good thing I think he did was that early on he was really, forthcoming that our family had issues around alcoholism. He didn't include himself in that, so much. Because when I grew up, we actually had a pretty okay time.

[00:07:12] I think my parents were really good at hiding it and also their substance use. My dad was a professional musician too, and when you're a musician, it's hard to be in that party atmosphere and not participate, especially if you're the band leader. He taught me, if you're getting a cut of the bar give a lot of toasts so that people, will drink more.

[00:07:32] So I didn't grow up really having a sense that anything was odd until about adolescence when my dad's substance use. And I not as clear on my mom's though, it came a little bit later. The whole family system kind of imploded. I went to go live with my grandparents. and from that point on, things were just very chaotic and a lot of instability. I started to learn some coping mechanisms that I'm still unwinding today which Karen mentioned some of them I think. You know, three steps ahead, anticipating people's needs to avoid,feeling uncomfortable or feeling pain or have them avoid feeling pain, taking everything very personally, having to be responsible for everyone's wellbeing.

[00:08:20] My dad, who has passed on now, his substance use really escalated. He was always a good time guy. but he made it look fun and he never looked out of control with it until he was in his sixties. after his long-term partner passed away from her alcoholism, she was only 56, I believe.

[00:08:40] That was about a year and a half before I got to Al-Anon. That kind of broke him, and then he just took a dive. I think he'd always used substances to cope, but it just, it took a big turn and, he ended up having a major stroke and ending up in a nursing facility. where he eventually, two weeks before his 68th birthday, passed. from a host of thing, hard living, lots of trauma. But essentially, yeah, it's what did him in. I wouldn't have been able to get through that time without Al-Anon for sure.

[00:09:09]

[00:09:10] I also found myself in a profession. I worked in nonprofit, working with unhoused Vulnerable Families, which is absolutely perfect for someone super codependent.

[00:09:20] Spencer: Yeah,

[00:09:21] Katie P: just get to like, you be the hero to everybody.

[00:09:25] I was the volunteer coordinator, so I had a lot of control. It was a perfect fit until I burnt out so badly that I had to quit. The last day of my job it was, December 31st, 2019. And that's when I went back to, al-Anon for the first time. But backing up, Karen did take me to my first al-Anon meeting. we were at this wonderful festival called the Kate Wolf Music Festival, where our band was playing, and we were just sitting around our campsite, and Karen was just sharing about her experience.

[00:09:55] Katie P: And I was like, oh, for three years, my therapist has been telling me to go to Al-Anon and I've completely dismissed it. But when Karen said it, I was like, well, Karen has her life completely together, so I'm gonna trust what she says. I know differently now. But that first meeting was, it was like a balm to my soul that I didn't even know I needed. It was so incredible to hear my experience spoken back to me, especially the pain and shame that I had around the way my stepmother passed. She was secretive and not secretive about her alcoholism. She was a proud AA member. but she also like, never really got that sober. even though she would be kind talking the talk. So I think that's part of why I had a hard time even wanting to come to Al-Anon because I was like, well, it didn't work for her. She's dead.

[00:10:49] But once I came, it was just like the isolation. And that's really the thing I love about Al-Anon so much is it takes us out of Isolation with our pain because that is the thing that really can kill you as an Al-Anon is being alone with the shame and the pain of living in the cycle of addiction. All of a sudden it was like, oh, this weight was just lifted off of me and I didn't know I could actually feel that way.

[00:11:18] The program has helped me profoundly to stay in relationship with people I love who have this issue, because so many of the people in my life who do have these issues, they're like the best people. They're the most fun, not all the time,

[00:11:35] Spencer: got that. Yeah.

[00:11:37] Katie P: but I love them dearly. I love them so much.

[00:11:41] I think a lot of people, when they come to Al-Anon, they think, oh, they're gonna tell you that you have to cut everybody off and it's gonna be this hardcore thing. That could not have been farther from the truth of what my experience has been is that it's people in the rooms talking about how they stay in relationship with the people who are actively using or maybe in recovery themselves. We learn what our part in the dynamic is. It's very attractive to me to be like oh, they are so messed up, I am so put together. And that is not true at all. I have done insane things to try and manage and manipulate in all of those thing, you know, to, to keep the alcoholic safe or to keep,someone from doing something horrible to themselves. and the toll that's taken on me is, I got problems.

[00:12:25] But it's also very much so informed my creative process in a new way. It's given me a new life in that too. And that I have that as a touchstone to go back to and it helps me detach enough to where I can use it in my songwriting, to hopefully make well-crafted songs that resonate and have emotional depth.

[00:12:47] Songwriting allows me to detach in a lot of ways. and I'm very thankful for it. I'm not as frequent attender as Karen is. I dip in and out, but I do still really, love the program and have gotten so much from it.

[00:13:00] Spencer: When did you start creating music and then after that, relative to when you came to Al-Anon or ACA,

[00:13:09] Katie P: I think I started writing songs probably around 15 or 16. Just the best songs ever too. I remember all of them. no, but I'd been writing songs since that time. and I never really stopped. All that stuff was on piano. It wasn't until I started playing guitar that all of a sudden like the floodgates opened and I had a totally new way to write songs. At the time, I was in a pretty abusive relationship with someone with substantial substance use issues. And it was a really wonderful outlet. I didn't know about Al-Anon at that time.

[00:13:43] My songwriting and the topics that I've always kind of circled around have naturally always been in this realm. I think because of my experiences, they just have naturally been talking about those types of things.

[00:13:56] It was 2016 when I first started going. So it was about 10 years ago almost. Yeah.

[00:14:02] Spencer: At that point you had been writing and performing for a while,

[00:14:07] Katie P: And I started performing really young. My dad would bring me up on stage when I was like six. So I was singing and performing in front of large audiences really young. I was recording really young. And that I also learned, was a way for me to make my dad really happy with me. And so it became intertwined with that codependency and even further on, like when our band became more successful, and he was past that time in his life, especially because of all of his health issues, he wasn't performing. I would sometimes downplay things. I knew he was proud of me, but I also knew it could make him a little unhappy that I was doing stuff or that I was writing so many songs. I knew he was always proud of me. But also, his personality could be a little jealous too. The codependency just runs all the way through.After coming to Al-Anon, it just opened up a whole new, like palette, I wanna say of how to approach these subject matters, With that element, again, of detachment.

[00:15:08] Spencer: So let's put a hold on that for a minute. And I want to hear from, Karen about how you came to music.

[00:15:15] Karen B: yeah,I was a little different in that, my family wasn't that musical, although I think my parents sang in the choir or something in a Lutheran church in Pennsylvania. So there was that. And my dad had a guitar that he would bring out on rare occasions and play the three songs that he knew on them.

[00:15:30] And I always thought that was cool. When I was in high school,I became really religious. It was a coping mechanism for me. So I learned a lot of guitar through church and I started singing and playing in church. But even at that time, like same time I guess as Katie, when I was like about 16 or so, then I did start to write songs.

[00:15:50] A few of them were church songs, but that was when I started to become aware of what I was feeling. Because that was one of the main things that I wasn't doing, as a coping mechanism in my home, was that I just was not even aware of what I was feeling. I was either like hyper spazz, fun. Or angry, and I really don't know, if there was anything in between. When I started writing songs, all this pain came up and I was like, wow, I didn't know I felt like this. I just, I started writing songs.

[00:16:20] I would play them for my friends. I would play them for my sister, but I really didn't play them out. But the more I, wrote, the more I was like, wow, I really want to, I really wanna play these out. And it became like a need. I needed to share them in a larger context.

[00:16:36] Just singing church songs wasn't enough for me. And that was really hard too, because I had a weird codependent relationship with church. It was the thing that gave me affirmation. And so doing something that was not part of the playbook and being like, I wanna play my songs in coffee shops. It was really hard to break away from that.

[00:16:53] But, when I did that was such a huge part, that creativity and that songwriting and playing out my songs for other people, essentially it was like having little meetings. Like my shows were like little meetings because people would tell me how much they related to what I was saying.

[00:17:08] Spencer: They were often about my family pain or relationship pain or things like that. It was a huge outlook and a connection to myself that I had shut off to protect myself. So for both of you, it's been part of your

[00:17:22] life effectively, forever

[00:17:26] Karen B: Yeah.

[00:17:27] Spencer: from when you became independently thinking beings.

[00:17:31] Karen B: Yeah.

[00:17:32] Katie P: Yeah.

[00:17:32] Spencer: and then at some point you, you two came together.

[00:17:35] Karen B: Yay.

[00:17:36] Katie P: Yay.

[00:17:37] Yes.

[00:17:38] Spencer: that story?

[00:17:38] Karen B: Great.

[00:17:39] Katie P: I started a band called The Bootleg Honeys. I was a female trio, Americana original music with two other local singer songwriters. Amazing songwriters. We were looked at as like a super group in our community. 'cause we'd all had independent things and then we came together, and it just clicked and we hit the ground running and we had a lot of local support and local success. and then right after we released, our first album, one of the members quit kind of suddenly. It was hard. but ultimately I have so much gratitude for that moment because that's what brought us to Karen. She was our first and only choice to join. We knew her just through friends. We have actually some really weird connections, like other family connections that we figured out later on. So, it was destined to be. We did the band for about a year and a half more with Karen. And then it kind of imploded again. The other member quit. The previous member who'd quit came back. You know, this has never happened with bands before. Bands arevery functional.

[00:18:45] Spencer: I was gonna say, familiar story.

[00:18:46] Katie P: yeah. bands really are like little weird dysfunctional families. You have to have your issues together. You're gonna be functional and have good boundaries, which I had none. I really took on everything. I was terrified that people were gonna leave. So I just was like, Nope, I'll do everything. I'll do all the booking, I'll do all this. even when people wanted to take on more responsibilities, I had a very hard time letting go of that. It was 2017, the other band member left. I found out I was pregnant like the same week, which was a surprise. And so everything just really changed very suddenly. and we decided to put the band on hold. I went full-time with my nonprofit job. Karen was back into teaching. But we never stopped writing, neither of us ever stopped writing even though we weren't really performing anymore. We both, became moms around the same time in different ways. So our lives changed in that way. And then just with the band not really being stable. But we remained friends and actually became closer friends, especially when the pandemic hit because so much isolation. And

[00:19:54] Karen B: I had quit my job in 2019, December 31st. I'm going to get back into playing music.No.

[00:20:02] Spencer: then

[00:20:03] Katie P: and then 2020 happened and there was no more music. But I never stopped writing. Karen never stopped writing. And there was this one day that she called

[00:20:12] Karen B: oh, yeah.

[00:20:13] Katie P: Crying alongside the road, basically just, oh, Maybe I'll let you say, it, Karen, 'cause it was your experience, but it's it was like a turning point for our whole project.

[00:20:23] Karen B: Yeah, it was a big turning point. We were just starting to get back to some in-person teaching, which was just very nightmarish. I think we were hybrid or something like that at the time that, that this happened, that Katie's referring to.

[00:20:35] I was driving home and I had just had from journaling and doing all this stuff, had this kind of revelation that, the reason that I was really shying away from music. I wasn't listening to a lot of music. I wasn't playing very much. I would still write like on occasion, but I was really having this weird,a aversion to it. And I realized that the aversion was based on how, although I loved it so much, I just felt like I could never be good enough. I'm good enough for what I don't know, you know what I'm saying?

[00:21:02] in, in my head, I was just like, I'm secretly ashamed that I'm not good enough. And I told this cry, I pulled over an orchard and was like talking to Katie on the phone and she just like bursts out laughing. She just

[00:21:15] laughed at me.

[00:21:16] Katie P: apt to do.

[00:21:17] Karen B: Yes. She was like, what? what are you talking about? She's like, you're amazing. And we had this discussion where we just realized that for each other that I said,Katie, I have no doubt in your ability, like, you are amazing. Every song you write is amazing. Your voice is thrilling. All of this. And she's like, well, that's what I think about you.

[00:21:35] Katie P: You

[00:21:36] Dummy.

[00:21:41] Karen B: exactly. So that's honestly right there, that's really the seed of where the whole podcast idea started was 'cause we realized that when we believed in each other that way, that we had what we needed to move. I had what I needed to move forward and we could, mutually encourage and support.

[00:21:59] Spencer: Okay, let's talk about that for a

[00:22:01] minute. our listener doesn't know that you have a podcast together. Tell us a little bit about that. I understand you're like on a season break or something.

[00:22:08] Karen B: Yeah.

[00:22:09] Katie P: Yeah, we have one eight episode season that's up. Each episode we, do a little brief breathing meditation. We do what we call a headlines only check in where we don't get into the blood and guts of our lives, but just to be like, what is real about what we're feeling right now? And then we have a topic that relates to the songs we've brought. We talk a little bit about the topic and then each one of us shares an original song, and then we basically shower each other with compliments about, why we're so amazing.

[00:22:41] Karen B: What we love about this song. we point out craft elements that are good in the song and

[00:22:46] Katie P: Yes. But then a lot of it then relates back to our experience in recovery. 'cause so many of our songs are connected to that, and the topics themselves. You know, we're also songwriting coaches, and we have like our little supernova system. But so much of that is informed by recovery. so, we have, listening, doing the work.what are some of the other ones, Karen?

[00:23:09] Karen B: Know, Like support, supporting each other. Inspiration. And I feel like we're missing one.

[00:23:15] Katie P: Yep. Must not be that important.

[00:23:22] Spencer: Your podcast is called.

[00:23:23] Karen B: Supernova Support.

[00:23:25] Spencer: Okay.

[00:23:26] We'll get some

[00:23:26] links in the show notes so that people can find it.

[00:23:29] Karen B: Yeah.

[00:23:30] Katie P: We'll give you a warning that we swear like sailors.

[00:23:34] Karen B: My father was a Marine and so I just grew up and I learned to play poker when I was like five. You know what I mean? These things go together, you know?

[00:23:42] Spencer: Absolutely. The thing that you wanted to talk about outside of the stories, which I think we're up to now, right?is about how emotional sobriety

[00:23:53] is informing your creative process. Katie, I know you started getting into that a little bit and I was like, wait, let's,

[00:24:00] Katie P: thank you.

[00:24:00] Spencer: the stories first. and I just wanna note note that the term emotional sobriety is not one that at least I hear frequently in the Al-Anon program. There's a chapter in the aa big book about emotional sobriety. But, I think I know what it means, but maybe you tell me what it means to you and how, it's changing the way in which you create.

[00:24:21] Katie P: My drug of choice is out of control emotions. I think my experience of identifying, in the Al-Anon community is that I feel like I'm a little dry, like in in terms of a dry alcoholic. I can be white knuckling, I can be doing all these things that are very similar to someone who's maybe trying not to drink in terms of trying not to do all these, like emotionally damaging, harmful things to myself and others. Because I'm not taking care of myself and my focus is outward trying to control, trying to manage. What emotional sobriety means to me is that I am present to my emotions and that even if I am feeling overwhelmed, it's like a practice. The practice of songwriting really just melds into that for me, because I have this amazing tool that if I start to feel very emotionally overwhelmed or activated, I can sometimes have the awareness to go, oh, that's right, I can, sit down with my guitar. And then I can just purge that emotion.

[00:25:28] I write very, stream of consciously to begin with. Even if nothing comes from it, I can use that to get in touch with those emotions and come down from a 11, to maybe a two where then I can start to have some perspective. and it becomes a container where I can also put that stuff. and then put it aside and then, okay, maybe I'll come back to that song and then I can come back to those emotions. Also in songwriting there's no rules for what you can say, what you can't say. There's so much freedom in it.

[00:25:59] Part of that white knuckling is keeping the emotions inside until you explode. Songwriting gives me that opportunity to say anything I want to. I don't have to keep it in the song a lot of times I do. But it's something I love to do so much. And it has this added benefit of regulating my nervous system. Because doing something creative immediately gets you back into your body.

[00:26:19] Karen B: Mm-hmm.

[00:26:19] Katie P: And so I get to practice these two things I love at the same time. They inform each other, and I can't even think of one without the other now. In terms of the way I write, especially if I'm writing about topics that relate to my experiences of growing up in this kind of chaos.

[00:26:35] Karen B: Yes.

[00:26:36] Spencer: Talking about feelings, one of the things that I noticed in myself as I was working the Al-Anon program, working the steps in particular, was coming to be able to identify feelings, to put words on what I was feeling. When I try to tell my story of recovery, before Al-Anon there was anger, there was fear, but I just wasn't identifying feelings a lot. I think, partly because as you say, they sort of stacked up and the loudest ones got noticed. But now I can recognize more nuanceand have words. Does that match up with your experience at all?

[00:27:30] Karen B: 100%. I could not identify any other feelings besides probably the ones you mentioned for the life of me. I have a fraternal twin and she's also a singer and a songwriter. She was labeled a sensitive one in our family. You know how it is in families, you tend to just stick to your lane. And, that she was a sensitive one. So I was like,no, I'm blah all this. And then I realized I'm extremely sensitive, extremely sensitive, but I just couldn't identify them. And that's definitely what songwriting did.

[00:28:00] Songwriting is pretty much the only thing that did that for me. I don't think there was anything else that, that got to that no matter what, like nothing else could reach me. When you write, writing doesn't lie. Like it just, it comes out whatever you're really thinking and feeling blah on the page. That's why it's such a great practice. So many times I have no idea what I'm feeling. I did this on Friday night. I was telling Katie,I sat down to the keyboard and I was just feeling weird, but I didn't know what I was feeling and this song pops out with this information I didn't understand or have any idea that I was feeling. And then this whole song came out and I'm like, oh, that's how I'm feeling about that. It's so useful. The other thing I, I really wanna say about, the whole emotional sobriety, whatever, what it does for me, and I know Katie alluded to this, is that, really, I just wouldn't be doing anything with music if I didn't have recovery. Because my entire life was taken up with managing everyone else. And I didn't think I was allowed to pay attention to myself.

[00:29:00] That's why when I saw that reading, that we read in the beginning, that's just me 100%. I didn't value my voice. I didn't value my ability to write songs. I thought, oh, that's a cute little thing. You put that over there, Karen, but then get to the real business of teaching, teaching those little students who need you. Which, they did. And it was good. But I was not valuing myself. It is the thing that helps me. It is the living my own life, the focusing on myself part of recovery that we talk about so much in program. So many people, we don't know what our life is. It's really disconcerting when you start to let go of the four M's and you're like, what am I gonna do now that I'm not busy mothering and managing everyone around me?

[00:29:41] And then, what do I even wanna do? And so that was the process. That'll come up in my song later. That's what kind of came up for me as I started to develop it, that I'm like, oh, I do wanna do something with music.

[00:29:53] Spencer: When you talk about teaching, it sounds like you're not teaching now.

[00:29:57] Karen B: You caught that. Yeah. I escaped. I escaped. I didn't retire. I just couldn't do it anymore. I loved teaching for so many years. and I love high schoolers. They're crazy and fun and real, and I love them. But when I, Katie alluded to us becoming mothers, I started foster adopting my daughter when she was seven, around that time. And of course any mothering is really all consuming, at all. But this situation was very huge. And so I really,I was consumed with that. So once I had my own child, 'cause all the other years of teaching, I didn't have a child, I was like, what?

[00:30:33] How do people do this? I knew all these people who were like teaching and they had three kids and they were te I'm like, I can't do this. And the older that she got when she started to become a teenager and I was teaching teenagers, I'm like, I can't do this. I can't be at school where everyone's dissing me and then coming home and she's dissing me. I just can't do that 24 7. I just, it was too much. It just became too much. I realized that I just couldn't give what the students needed. And it was really important to me to show up for the students in the way that they need. And they need so much now. They need so much. I couldn't do it anymore. I was gonna start saying things I didn't wanna say, and I didn't wanna do that.

[00:31:11] Spencer: Speaking as a parent who had children in school some years back now, I appreciate that you recognized that you weren't able to give to the job what you needed to, what you wanted to.

[00:31:22] Karen B: Mm-hmm.

[00:31:23] Spencer: I will say I also discovered I like teens when my kids turned 13, you know? I have twins. When they turned 13, I. I was like, oh my God, I have teenagers. And by the time they turned 14, it was like, oh my God, I have teenagers.same words, totally different, Tone of voice. Totally different frame. Yeah.

[00:31:48] So I've been, almost 20 years now, working with the teens in my church.

[00:31:54] Karen B: remember you saying that on episodes now. I

[00:31:56] Spencer: Yeah.

[00:31:58] The beauty of that particular role is I don't really have any responsibility for outcomes. I need to be there. I need to be authentically there. I always felt as long as we have a meaningful conversation, then we were successful,

[00:32:16] Karen B: Oh, yeah.

[00:32:17] Being a caring adult it means everything.

[00:32:21] Spencer: I saw at least one of my kids, did find that caring adult who was not a parent, who he was able to take stuff to.

[00:32:33] I know I played that role for at least a couple of kids.

[00:32:36] And you know, it's really important,

[00:32:38] Karen B: Yeah.

[00:32:38] Katie P: It's the number one resiliency factor that can counteract childhood trauma in the research.

[00:32:46] Karen B: Oh, yeah.

[00:32:47] Spencer: you go,

[00:32:47] Katie P: There you go.

[00:32:48] Karen B: Social worker. Katie tells us how it is.

[00:32:52] Spencer: right. Yes.

[00:32:54] Teacher Karen and social worker Katie. Okay.

[00:32:56] Are you still doing that job, Katie?

[00:32:58] Katie P: no. 'cause I as I said, my last day was december 31st, 2019.and again, was when I got my butt back into Al-Anon because I knew I was so burnt out and I was so disillusioned. I had gotten into some very toxic and kind of codependent stuff with my job.

[00:33:18] There had been a shift in leadership that was very contrary to my values, which was a pretty amazing thing actually, because it really brought forth like the things that I knew I couldn't compromise on.

[00:33:29] So there was a positive piece to it too, but what I knew I couldn't compromise on was my wellbeing. I couldn't continue to sacrifice myself, especially with the drastic changes at the agency.

[00:33:41] Spencer: I'd been there for 10 years. It was very dear to me, but I was very enmeshed with it. Working with families and working with vulnerable women,and it was a agency completely run by women. we were doing something miraculous, but I just, my bandwidth with being a new mom, my kid had just turned two. So I hadn't slept for two years. I was well done at that point, though.

[00:34:05] It seems to me, not having been in that role, but it seems to me that it is both a perfect place and maybe one of the worst places for a codependent to be.

[00:34:16] Katie P: True.

[00:34:17] Karen B: yes.

[00:34:18] Katie P: True. If you have the support of an organization, if you're working within an organization that recognizes that, and is actively supporting its employees to counteract that and says, yes, that's gonna be part of it. As a volunteer coordinator, when people would come to volunteer, I would say okay, you're here for a reason. You might not know what it is. You're gonna get triggered here. And stuff's gonna come up for you because no one comes here just because they wanna help. You're here because there's something in you that resonates with the plight of what our families are experiencing. Part of my training and onboarding was like a huge section dedicated to how are you gonna take care of yourself after you leave here? Because it's very intense.

[00:35:02] You're gonna hear stories, you're gonna see things firsthand that may shock you and may bring up and will bring up, stuff. That was a huge part of the supports I offered for the volunteers because you really can't be doing that work and not be engaged in that. There's a limit to what you can do.

[00:35:21] Spencer: who was providing that support for you.

[00:35:23] Karen B: Ooh,

[00:35:24] Spencer: Exactly.

[00:35:25] Karen B: crickets.

[00:35:27] Katie P: I mean, I had amazing, like I had people I'd worked with for 10 years. We were. And we still are very close. So my coworkers were amazing. The thing was too, like I got to be pregnant there where, we served a lot of, pregnant women and women with children, obviously. And, The support I got from our participants just was incredible.

[00:35:48] Our organization was rooted in some fundamental values of everyone deserves a place to be. And It doesn't matter what you've done. And doesn't matter if your Kids have been taken away. You still deserve food and a safe place to be, a place to go to the bathroom, a place to take a shower.

[00:36:07] Our philosophy was like, if that's all you can do here, it was a day program, so it was a drop in program. if that's all you can do is just be here and eat some food and maybe take a nap in the recliner, like that's absolutely okay. There was no push. We had to establish a lot of safety and a lot of trust.And that means having real relationships with people. That culture had been from the founding of the organization. And when that shifted, I just couldn't exist in that. It felt very contrary to just who I am and what I believed. So I feeling that conflict. And again, I don't know if I would've been even aware of it, in the same way, if I hadn't had the tools of Al-Anon to recognize those feelings.

[00:36:49] Spencer: So you had some of that, but you weren't,

[00:36:55] Katie P: I wasn't really actively going. 'cause again, I had a small child. I was still, participating, through readings and journaling and still dabbling. I didn't have a home meeting anymore. But that day I quit. I found a new home meeting, and started attending very regularly and got a sponsor, and made it up to step six. And then I bailed.

[00:37:15] Spencer: Yeah.

[00:37:16] That happens.

[00:37:18] Karen B: Yep.

[00:37:18] Spencer: That happens.

[00:37:20] Katie P: That's a tough one.

[00:37:20] Karen B: Yeah. I think I made it to like step three the first time with my first sponsor and that was it. And then it literally took me a decade to go through the steps. I talk about that all the time, like at meetings. I love that. I'm like, take it. As long as it, it takes, it doesn't matter. That's what I had time to do.

[00:37:36] Spencer: I'll paraphrase one of my ministers who said. We believe what we need to believe, and I think in a recovery program, we do it at the rate that we need to do it.

[00:37:49] Karen B: That's right.

[00:37:51] Spencer: and we inherit a lot of maybe baggage from AA where the need to is urgent.

[00:37:58] whereas in Al-Anon recovery, I've known people who weren't even sure why they were there. They just knew that they identified, that coming to meeting made them feel a little better and they identified with what people were saying,

[00:38:13] but they didn't really know. Beyond that, they couldn't really say, this is why I'm here, and I would say, yeah,if you identify it, keep coming,

[00:38:21] Karen B: Yes.

[00:38:23] Spencer: if it's talking to you, keep coming, and you will figure out what you

[00:38:26] need and we'll hopefully have it for you here.

[00:38:28] Katie P: Yeah. I can remember many instances of being in the rooms with folks like that who were unsure, and then as they continued to attend. It was like, oh yeah. My grandpa was an alcoholic.or they were discovering like, oh, that's what that was. and then it would be this revelation because it was like, I didn't grow up in this situ. You know, I felt that kind of way myself, because again, the substance use that was around me was framed like this is just how we party. and this is just fun and nothing serious happens. Until it does. and then

[00:39:02] Spencer: Yeah.

[00:39:03] I wanna come back to the creativity, aspect here. I'm wondering if you can think of a couple of songs that you wrote, one before you came into recovery and one more recently, and how the content and or the process was different.

[00:39:24] Karen B: Oh my God. Wow.

[00:39:28] Katie P: That's a really good question. the one song I can think of, which Karen knows this song, 'cause it was on our first album, it's a song that I wrote after my stepmom had passed. it's called Typical Season. I love this song and people really loved it. We can link that, it's on the Bootleg Honey's album.

[00:39:47] When I listen to it now, I can hear that I'm like getting to something that I don't even think I was really conscious of. And I can also look at the writing and go, okay, there's some things that could be clearer. And I think that maybe if I'd had the tools of Al-Anon under my belt more, it would've helped me clarify that song.

[00:40:09] The song that I'm bringing today, Stardust Love, is almost a sister song. to that song, I think because there's, the themes are very similar, but it's way more specific. Craft wise, it's much more focused. And I was intentionally writing it. The other song, typical season, I didn't even, think I realized what it was about until I'd finished it. And then I was like, oh, this is about, her. This is me processing this deep loss. But I wasn't conscious of it while I was writing it. Whereas this song Stardust Love, I was very conscious of what I was trying to say. I will say, too, songwriting is a very spiritual experience for me. That's my highway to Superpower? to, to Higher power. which feels like a superpower. I don't think I was experiencing that quite as much, too. Now I feel much more connected to higher power when I'm writing, specifically if it's about this type of topic.

[00:41:14] Karen B: That's a good one. I like that. I know both of those songs,

[00:41:18] Katie P: You do.

[00:41:18] Karen B: really cool. No, because I've always loved that SI loved typical season and we were just

[00:41:22] Katie P: Yeah. And people loved it. it was like, People loved it. It's like a slow song. We, played a lot of bars and stuff, so we wrote songs specifically to get people drinking and dancing. that was our goal, like when you're,

[00:41:35] Karen B: Totally.

[00:41:35] Katie P: that type of band. And so this was a departure from that. It was a ballad. It was slow, but people really loved it.

[00:41:41] Karen B: It had a great feel. But yeah. Oh, I'm, yeah, I'm sitting there racking, my brain. Actually, I can think of several. The one I'll say, it's funny 'cause this song, I like the song, it's a kooky, fun song. It's called De Rien and it's not in French, but that's the title. It's a very upbeat, fun song I'll have to say too. It goes to this extremely dissonant chord and it's really funny. I'm feeling like the whole song is about feeling out of control, like about how these feelings are overtaking me and like being in a jungle and hacking away in the jungle and wanting to be rescued. it's a very frenetic, sounding song. and the chorus is basically, when I just say that it doesn't really matter, when I just say I'm doing fine, when I just say it's really not that important. I was hitting on this thing that like, there was something important to me, but I couldn't put my finger on what it was, and the way that I would ignore myself and I wouldn't listen to myself. So that is definitely just a real time cataloging that sense of that, that I think so many of us feel when we come into the program.

[00:42:45] We're like, we don't know what is wrong. but we know something's wrong and, we can't identify it, And then the song that we're using in the show here today is Amateur. I just realized they're both French. Which

[00:42:58] Katie P: You such a show off.

[00:43:00] Karen B: I mean, it's a borrowed word, whatever.

[00:43:02] The song Amateur is this beautiful awakening to what it is that's important to me.

[00:43:09] and it's this empowerment. I feel like it gets really woo woo at the end. It's beautiful, but it's very higher power connected. And it's just about like finally all those years later. I'm making a choice. I'm doing exactly what I said in the program where I'm like, I am now gonna focus on my own life. And whether I'm an amateur at music forever or not, it doesn't matter because this is what I'm going to do because it's important to me and because it's how I can connect, to my higher power.

[00:43:38] And what a great question, Spencer.

[00:43:40] And can I mention this? We haven't said that one of the reasons why we're even doing this podcast is because of you. I'm like, Spencer didn't know how to do it in the beginning and like he, he would talk about how he doesn't know what he's doing and then he just did it. And look at this thing that's grown up and it's so amazing and it helps so many people. I'm like so many, I can't believe the thousands of people that are helped by the recovery show

[00:44:05] Spencer: I can't either

[00:44:06] Katie P: it's amazing. so many people that we know in our groups and stuff, they listen. They're regular

[00:44:13] Karen B: yes,

[00:44:13] Spencer: and another thing that's amazing. No advertising,

[00:44:18] Karen B: yes. Attraction, not promotion. Yeah.

[00:44:20] Katie P: Attraction, not promotion.

[00:44:22] Spencer: I listen to these podcasts about podcasting, and they're like, get out there on the socials. And I'm like, okay. no.

[00:44:30] Katie P: No, we have a hard time coming with that too. 'cause I hate social media and I'm also just, terrified of it. Because it. activates a lot of my crazy stuff. We have an open mic that we started. That we have barely promoted.

[00:44:45] And it's like this kind of Al-Anon magic where we just started it and then people just started coming and we literally rarely promote it. And it's full every time. It's phenomenal. And it does, it feels like that magic of if you're just doing it, the people who are meant to hear the message are gonna come.

[00:45:05] Karen B: Yeah. So I just wanted to say thank you for that. 'cause that's why we started.

[00:45:10] Spencer: thank you. We'll take a short break and then we'll continue with our lives in recovery, where we talk about how recovery is working in our daily lives and maybe in our meetings.

Song 1

[00:45:19] Spencer: karen, you want to tell us again about your song Amateur?

[00:45:24] Karen B: yeah, the little bit more background I can give was, at the time of writing it, I was in the throes of deciding whether I could stay in teaching or not. It was, post pandemic, things were trying to swing back to whatever normal is.

[00:45:38] There is no normal, I mean, there never has been, but there certainly isn't,post pandemic for education. I was just really torn, back and forth and talking about it all the time. And I just couldn't, I couldn't decide, but at the same time, I was beginning to put value towards the singing and this music and songwriting again, like that discussion with Katie when I pulled over on the side of the road.

[00:46:03] I don't play piano, I never had, and I just started tinkering around with piano. I sat down at the piano. I didn't play it, and that's what's the extra hilariousness of the title Amateur, because I literally like, have never, I haven't played the piano before and I'm like, I'm gonna write a song.

[00:46:19] So I just sat down and just started plunking. Also I don't normally, stream of consciousness write. I think I started to write a little bit actually on a notebook, but then I took it down to the studio and I started playing with it. And it just kinda came out in this stream of consciousness way that I'd never written before.

[00:46:36] I never would allow myself to not write something that's structured. it's like, where's the structure? Like where's the chorus? Where's the whatever? It was like, it wasn't that at all. I'm like, whoa, I'm just writing this. It was such a beautiful, heartfelt experience of writing what was truly on my mind and letting it flow, and watching it take shape as I wrote and as I said, I have this great little verse in there where I talk about teaching and it's a funny analogy.

[00:47:04] I say, I, I make my money prepping packages, little machines for the economic good, because so much of teaching, and back in the day too, literally like the purpose of education was to prepare workers, you know what I'm saying? For the whatever. And I always just felt really disgusting about that as a goal.

[00:47:24] I'm like, that is not my goal, you know what I'm saying? In education, I'm not preparing workers for the system. But there's always that feeling of that, even though people wouldn't say that. Now in education, there is that thing.

[00:47:35] You've gotta get 'em to college. You've gotta get 'em to do this thing. And so I, I got to express that, in the song and say, but lately I've been thinking that I need to start thinking about considering what I love. Because amateur, the song title means really someone who loves. And so that's what I, that's what the song is and how it came to what do I love?

[00:47:54] And I realize that I really love making music and I love singing, and I feel that it's part of my purpose for being here. And I'm gonna do it no matter what. It was just such a joy writing that song. And Katie was so encouraging to me, in the spirit of what we do at Supernova support about, encouraging me in the song, asking me good questions about how to modify.

[00:48:18] She helped me change that one verse I was talking about, which was fun. 'cause then I said, oh, I've been fabricating fatal flaws. That's what I said, just like those war camp prisoners. And she helped me tinker that verse and get it to that, because that's what I felt like in teaching that I was like, I am not necessarily preparing these people for college.

[00:48:37] I just want them to know what they love. I'm here to support, what do you love? is that working on cars? Do you know what I'm saying? Is that being a beautician? Then be a beautician? it's just you don't need to do this certain thing that they're pushing you to do. It was a really a revelation. That song, I enjoyed it so much writing it and being able to sing it,

Our Lives in Recovery

[00:49:04] Spencer: In this section of the podcast, we talk about our lives in recovery. How have we experienced recovery recently? One of the things that I've talked about a lot recently is, taking care of myself, taking care of my body. I got a new trainer at the YMCA and he's got a new routine for me. And I came out of my first meeting with him kind of sore. Which, maybe a good thing. When we're done with this, I'm gonna head over there later this afternoon.because I'm trying to get in twice a week. That is my commitment to myself is to go at least twice a week to do like my weight work.

[00:49:44] Last Friday, a small group of people from my church organized what they called a pie day walk. 'cause it was March 14th, you know, pie day, right? The walk was supposed to be 3.14 miles long. We actually went a little over that. it was a beautiful day here. We walked, on a paved path in a park that goes along the side of the river in town.

[00:50:07] There were four or five of us there, and a couple of dogs. And it was just a really nice afternoon. Just walking along, chatting no real like goal. Except to get our 3.14 miles in. I sometimes forget that I need that sort of thing.

[00:50:25] And now I remember what it was that I was gonna talk about. I was listening to a podcast. I listen to a lot of podcasts. I'm listening to a podcast where this is basically two friends chatting about whatever topic is on their mind that week. I've only been listening to it for a little while. Only discovered it recently. But, I think each week, like one of them brings a topic. They were talking about, and I don't remember where this came up,what the real topic was where this conversation happened, but they were talking about how our phones, our devices, have sort of stolen us from ourselves. The one guy said, I realized I don't have any free time anymore.

[00:51:16] Karen B: Ooh.

[00:51:17] Spencer: Whenever I am not doing something, I'm on my phone, scrolling Twitter or playing a game or something. And I don't have that time that I used to have where I was just there with myself and I could be creative.

[00:51:39] And I was like, oh my God. Whoa. If I sit down and I don't have something that I'm doing, or even if I do have something I should be doing, out comes the phone and up comes like solitaire or something.

[00:51:53] Okay. it's not even productive. Okay. But it's like I have to fill that time. So one of the things about the walk last Friday was I did not have a podcast in my ear.

[00:52:08] I got there a little bit late. So my first half of the walk I was catching up. So it was just me and the dog and the river and the birds and, the occasional bicyclist zooming by. I remembered that conversation in that podcast that I'd been listening to and said, yes, I'm going to be intentionally not engaging myself, particularly with my phone. That perennial distraction that I carry in my pocket. I don't know where that's gonna go, but it woke me up to, to, think about, okay, how am I going to get some of that me time back? What am I gonna do differently? And I don't know. So, you know, more will be revealed, I'm sure, as they say. This weekend we're having, a sort of a regional lock in. We're trying to get this thing going again after the pandemic. We had this really strong culture of youth-led conferences,

[00:53:06] Karen B: Cool.

[00:53:07] Spencer: in, this multi-state region. Michigan, Indiana, Kentucky, and a little sliver of Ohio. Where they would run a weekend conference from Friday night to Sunday morning completely planned by and run by the youth with adult support. But, unfortunately the pandemic effects lasted long enough that everybody who was involved in that pre pandemic has now graduated out. So we've lost the culture.

[00:53:34] This one's been planned by adults, by the religious educator professionals. Hopefully we will then have people who are like, yes, this is good. I wanna do this, I want to be involved in making this happen. One of the youth in my group has been in the planning calls. Unfortunately, she's a senior,

[00:53:53] Karen B: darn it. When you lose them, they get, they go away. They always

[00:53:55] Spencer: yeah, they go away. that's the thing. They get good at it and then they go away.

[00:54:00] I'm looking forward to this. and also a little bit, I know I'm gonna be tired.

[00:54:04] But I try to leach some of that massive teenage energy too.

[00:54:10] Karen B: yes.

[00:54:11] Spencer: It must be good for something.so yeah, so that's where I am in my life and recovery right now. who would like to go next?

[00:54:20] Katie P: I have had some really annoying back issues this past week that just snuck up on me. I don't know what I did. I think it's just being 42, I guess. But I was pretty immobilized and so I really, had to take, easy does it to heart, which is hard for me. I have a young, energetic child. She's on spring break this week. I think part of my patterns in the past have been to suffer in silence or to ignore it, to push through, to do the dishes anyway, to do everything. And not just be like, you know what, my body's actually more important. So I really had to slow down, which can be very uncomfortable for me. But I was pretty uncomfortable anyway. so I really just had to stop and advocate for myself and call the, you know, because a lot of times they don't wanna see you for back pain. there's not a lot that they can do for you. But I did, I got an appointment. I've also had a kidney stone in the past, and it felt very reminiscent, of how that began. So then I was terrified, and very anxious. So instead of just sitting in that anxiety and just bracing myself for the worst pain imaginable, if you ever had a kidney stone, I advocated for myself, which isn't always easy. I was able to get an appointment and actually able to get some relief. I was given some medication and some other helpful things from my doctor.

[00:55:52] I feel like, you know, I wanna downplay it because I don't ever want to be compromised. I wanna always be capable. It was very humbling to walk into the doctor's office, and be on the wrong floor and to have the person checking me in go, oh, you're in a lot of pain. And I was like, yeah, I am here for my appointment. And she's like, well, you're on the wrong floor, so you need to go down.

[00:56:14] It was really a beautiful thing though, to actually be seen, to be believed. 'cause I think I get that in my head too, that no one's gonna believe me. I wonder where that comes from. No one's gonna believe my pain.

[00:56:25] As uncomfortable as it has been, it's getting a little better. It really just forced me to leave the dishes in the sink. And it's like, hey, it's okay. if my Kid watches this movie for the 10th time.and I really do just have to take care of myself if I want to get better and show up in my life the way I want to. So that phrase, easy does it, just was looping through. I love that slogan for so many reasons, because I often find myself in that, coming to consciousness and going, oh, I am white knuckling. Okay, gotta let go, gotta let go

[00:56:59] Karen B: Yeah.

[00:56:59] Katie P: and take it easy.

[00:57:01] Karen B: Yeah.

[00:57:02] Spencer: My wishes are with you for continued recovery.

[00:57:06] Karen B: I'll start off by saying I wish that I could say I'd been to a meeting. I just gotta a temporary job thing that took some my meeting time, and so I'm sad about that. And I'm just giving a shout out. You meeting people, you know who you are. I love my meetings so much. I wish that I could have been there this last two weeks. I couldn't. I'm thinking like part of the recovery thing is interesting for me. It does harken back to a little bit of what I said about sitting down at the piano on Friday night and like stuff coming out is, I very much with the help of the program have finally developed, I'd say in the last several years,a very specific practice, like a morning practice that I have, that I get up really early and I do kinda like a little yoga type routine.

[00:57:48] And then at the end of the little yoga thing, I have a kind of a meditation that I just set a timer, like for 10 minutes and I just sit there and, this is what I wanted to get at with how experienced recovery is.being able to sit there for 10 minutes and let whatever comes up, come up is very challenging.

[00:58:11] , I think it's one of the deeper things that has taken me a bazillion years in the program, is that tenderness and kindness with myself. Because I know in meetings, that's the thing is like meetings really taught me and continue to teach me how, I love listening to people at meetings and I would never dream of saying something mean or being like, hurry it up or why are you saying that, or anything like that in, in a meeting it's I'm just like, oh, it's so easy to, to listen tenderly, in a meeting.

[00:58:40] So to have that finally filtered down to myself and to be able to sit there for 10 minutes and be like, this morning I'm like, I just was all over the map. Like I didn't really have anything that, that was coming up, but just to be like. That's all right. You deserve someone to sit here and listen to you.

[00:58:56] That's kind of weird. You know what I'm saying? and like for 10 minutes, that's okay. And I'm just gonna sit here with myself and just give space if something needs to come up. And it's taken so many years in the program for me to even just do 10 minutes of listening to myself.

Upcoming

[00:59:10]

[00:59:11] Spencer: Coming up in the podcast, I still have steps eight through 12 to do, and I'm having a little trouble finding a volunteer for step eight. I think I'm gonna reach out to some specific people who've been on the podcast before and say, Hey, one of you guys wanna do step eight with me? 'cause I don't know, this is where the rubber hits the road or something, and all of a sudden the volunteers are few and far between.I'm sure when we get to 10 or 11. There'll be plenty of them, but eight and nine, you know.

[00:59:37] Katie P: Those are doozies.

[00:59:40] Spencer: So, anyway, we will have episodes, on the rest of the steps. We're not gonna stop at step seven. We welcome your thoughts. Please join our conversation, leave a voicemail or send us an email with your feedback or your questions. And Katie, how can people do that?

[00:59:55] Katie P: You can send a voice memo or email to feedback at the recovery show, or if you prefer, you can call and leave us a voicemail at 7 3 4 7 0 7 8 7 9 5. You can also use the voicemail button on the website to join the conversation from your computer. We'd love to hear from you. Share your experience, strength, and hope or your questions about today's topic, of singer songwriters in recovery, or any of our upcoming topics, including steps eight through 12. If you have a topic you would like to talk about, let us know.

[01:00:29] Karen B: If you would like advanced notice for some of our topics so that you can contribute to that topic, you can sign up for our mailing list by sending an email to feedback at therecovery.Show. Put email in the subject line to make it easier to spot.

[01:00:46] Katie P: Karen, where can our listeners find out, more about the Recovery show?

[01:00:51] Karen B: our website is the recovery dot show. There you can find information about the show, primarily notes for each episode, which include links to the readings and other resources and videos or links for the music we choose.

[01:01:07] Spencer: I will note that this episode will be at the Recovery show slash 4 3 1.

[01:01:12] Katie P: We'll take a short break before diving into the mailbag.

Song 2

[01:01:16] Katie P: And our second musical selection, which will be available on the website is Stardust Love By Me, Katie Phillips. This song came about after, a really hard and disappointing revelation that someone I love very much who's struggled with substance use, was back at it. And I was mad.I was feeling all this stuff. and it was debilitating, how much it was impacting me.

[01:01:49] It was, again, one of those moments where I went, okay, I gotta sit down and just see what comes out. Similar to Karen's song, it really, it came out stream of consciousness, which is how I tend to write generally. Oftentimes I'll just start playing and I'll hit record on my voice memo, and then go back and see, if there's anything to grab. This song just came very quickly. At first it really was just me processing these emotions. But then this magical thing will happen where all of a sudden I shift more into songwriter mode and then I go,oh, this is something. Then I actually start, to think about it. This song kind of goes through these steps of looking at you know, the, the first line is, All of the pieces, falling into place, family disease is center stage. You know, you can't hide from this. But also, I can't keep sacrificing

[01:02:46] myself. There's one lyric in particular, it's, I can't worship the ground you walk on if you keep walking away. I can't carve my heart up just to feel your pain.

[01:02:56] 'cause so much of that, you know, the person who's suffering from addiction, we learn to run their emotional reality through our own systems. That's something I've really had to work a lot on. This song was just like a big boundary in a lot of ways.

[01:03:10] There's, another line that's I can't sacrifice myself at the altar of your mistakes.

[01:03:16] I plagiarized myself: I stole some lines from another song for the bridge, which is always a fun thing to do.

[01:03:23] How many times can I lose you? How many times can we do this? This hurts so much. How long can this even go on?

[01:03:33] Then I came to the third verse where I struggled for a while. Because I wanted to get to the bigger message I wanted to get to the truth, which is I love you no matter what. I do have to live my life.I cannot sacrifice myself, but I refuse to stop loving you. I really wanted to zoom out.

[01:03:53] In the last verse, it gets a little metaphysical, talking about in the end, we all return to stardust and will return to love.

[01:04:03] That's what's always true. Yes, we have these human experiences, that are gonna be painful and we gotta just make it through. I do believe we all are doing our best. Even folks who are suffering with addiction issues. You know, alcohol and drugs are like really effective with dealing with pain. They're kind of brilliant,

[01:04:25] Spencer: and then they're

[01:04:25] Karen B: Right? And then,

[01:04:27] Katie P: and then there's a lot of consequences.

[01:04:29] I've tried to learn to really let go of blaming the person I love for finding something that gave them relief. But I also cannot participate in ways that are going to harm me.

[01:04:44] I ended up doing some kind of workshopping with a friend of ours, where she got out a big piece of paper. And she's like draw what you want this last verse to feel like. I ended up drawing like the curvature of the earth and a little person standing on the earth and then like stars looking out. I was like I wanna get that much perspective. Because everything else is very like in the minutiae of the experience. I very intentionally want to zoom out and get back to that we are one, that there is no difference between us just because you're suffering with this thing doesn't make me better than you, or less flawed. It's just what you're dealing with. And here's what I'm dealing with. And can we maybe not hurt each other a lot in the process?

[01:05:27] Because I love you. Because I love you, I know you love me and let's get through this together. I'm always gonna come back to that. I'm always gonna come back. Even if It takes me a long time. There's no difference between us.

[01:05:42] Spencer: Earlier in our conversation when you started talking about using your recovery or emotional sobriety in the writing process, you threw out the word detachment. This song says detachment with love to me.

[01:05:55] Katie P: Oh,

[01:05:55] a hundred percent. Yeah.

[01:05:58] Karen B: I'll have to say that this song is like one of my favorite. I always say that about every song Katie writes, but but this song is like one song. I'm like, I want all program people everywhere to hear this song, because it is life altering. It's so catchy and hummable too. But the meaning of it is what we all need to hear. I'm so excited that this is a song she shows for this

[01:06:20] Katie P: Thank you, Karen. I think you actually forced me to choose this song. I don't think I actually chose that,

[01:06:25] Karen B: Chose as a euphemism.

[01:06:27] Spencer: and I think I forced you to

[01:06:28] Katie P: choose amateur, so we're just such a good team.

[01:06:32] Spencer: There you go. There you go.

Listener Feedback

[01:06:42] Spencer: Now it's time for some listener feedback, hearing your voices, your thoughts, your ideas, your experience, strength, and hope.

[01:06:52] I'm gonna say something that I meant to say earlier, which is that I am going to be at the AA International Convention in Vancouver in July. If you're listening and you're also going to be there, hopefully we can meet up. Send me an email so that we can exchange information about who we really are, because that's the only way we can find each other while we're there.

[01:07:17] Alison writes: Hi. My name is Alison and I've listened to your podcast for a few years. I'm responding from your request to hear from people in Al-Anon who live with those who don't drink or use drugs, but are not in any recovery.

[01:07:30] At first, I felt out of place in the program only because a lot of people in my meetings left their qualifiers, typically spouses. Or their partners had AA recovery. What did it say about me and my choices that I chose to be married to someone I call a dry drunk? I was addicted to feeling ashamed of myself, and this was yet another opportunity.

[01:07:51] There are a few stories in the literature that I found about being with a dry drunk, but a lot of daily readers kept saying phrases like, don't just do something, stand there, or wait at least six months before you decide whether to leave a partner unless you're in immediate danger.

[01:08:06] And of course there was the opening. You can find happiness, whether the alcoholic is still drinking or not. Al-Anon has helped me to understand that there is always something beneath the drinking. My spouse would get blackout drunk and not remember any of the issues that it caused in our relationship. Before I started recovery, I gave the ultimatum either quit drinking or I'm gone.

[01:08:28] What I know now is that some alcoholics will truly do the bare minimum to avoid the consequences of their actions. In short, after my spouse quit, I was still furious, simmering with resentment well after the fact. Years later, the pain from the drinking days remained, and it was during the pandemic, sharing a house with a dry drunk that I realized my life was completely unmanageable.

[01:08:51] I had hit bottom and was ready to throw my life away. Then I attended my first meeting. I came to Al-Anon right on time. One thing I've heard is there's the drunk and there's the crazy person. After many years of initial blunt chop detachment, then peeling more and more layers of my emotional onion, testing the waters of this thing called intimacy, rereading Tian Dayton's books, working steps, and meeting with my sponsor, I see more and more the human, I married. The veil of the disease I have with my spouse can lift and there is the person who is terrified of many things, living his life the best he can.

[01:09:32] Are there days when I feel like life could be so much more being with a person in recovery? Of course. I wish I didn't have to see him white knuckling it through life. But here's the thing. That's his journey. And after all these years, I've stayed married. I've staved off bitterness. I've grown. We are different people. At the end of the day. I could see many moments when my anger and tolerance and judgment made me a bad spouse too. And sometimes I see we're just plain compatible.

[01:10:01] I am emotionally deep, thoughtful, sober, and intentional. I don't numb my way through life. Although I can see why many people I love, do and must. Otherwise, life is simply too unbearable for them. Al-Anon had given me compassion that I simply never had before.

[01:10:18] One of the worst things I did was make my spouse my higher power before recovery, and once I realized that, it was a game changer. This person, nor any human, can be my higher power. My life, my happiness, my direction is up to me and a higher power.

[01:10:35] At the end of the day, I don't regret telling my spouse to quit or else I'm out, which again, I said before my recovery. That, truly wouldn't have worked for my life. But being dry wasn't enough either for me. I personally needed recovery to unravel the wounds from those days so they didn't leak into today's conflicts, which sometimes they do, and I can truly say it's why I'm still married, at least for now, with a wink emoji.

[01:11:03] Alison.

[01:11:04] Thanks for writing Alison. Thanks for sharing that. I think I've said this before, but my understanding is that really the drinking is a symptom of the underlying spiritual illness that is alcoholism. We of course, wish that our loved ones can find full recovery, but sometimes that doesn't happen.

[01:11:27] Kimberly sent a voice memo.

[01:11:30] KImberly: Hi Spencer. I just wanted you to know how much I really appreciated the speaker about Mar-Anon. My son spent four weeks in a mental health facility due to cannabis psychosis. A psychotic break is not something easily recovered from, even after he was released from the hospital. There was so much recovery that needed to happen because of the drugs that they put him on and the trauma he had gone through.

[01:11:53] He was unable to work for quite a while. He didn't really know what he wanted to do with his life, and of course, his father and I were left holding the bill and the bag. It was very hurtful that family, friends, and my Al-Anon friends couldn't believe that simple pot could have brought this on and that pot could be the cause.

[01:12:13] I have never heard of Mar-Anon, but I guarantee you it could have helped my husband and I. I'm certainly glad that this exists and I'm grateful that your podcast has brought it to our attention. I. As pot becomes legal over the United States, I believe these problems will become more widespread and known.

[01:12:29] My son went on to have one year of being clean and then thought he could go back to smoking pot again and ended up in the same situation back in the mental health facility. He's now one year clean for the second time, and this time he's been using the 12 step program Narcotics Anonymous. I am and have been a grateful member of Al-Anon for many years.

[01:12:49] The tools of the program were very helpful to me going through this with my son. However, I think there is something very valuable being able to talk to people who really know what you're going through and can share their specific experience, strength, and hope. Thanks Spencer, for all you do. You really are making a difference in this world.

[01:13:11] Spencer: Thank you Kimberly. I did forward your note to Bart, who was on the Mar-Anon episode.

[01:13:19] We also got an email from Marcelle about that same episode.

[01:13:24] Dear Spencer and Bart, I just listened to your March 13th, episode number four 30 talking about Mar-Anon. It was wonderful to hear this episode to learn about 12 step programs specifically for people who have loved ones with a marijuana abuse problem.

[01:13:38] My qualifier is addicted to marijuana and has been for our entire 20 year marriage, but I always thought it's just weed, just like your guest spoke of. I didn't get much support from my friends because they would say it's just weed. They don't understand that an addiction is an addiction no matter what you're addicted to. It's the behavior, not the thing you're addicted to. My qualifier is addicted to marijuana and had alcohol abuse issues too, and chose addiction over our marriage and our life together of 23 years.

[01:14:11] It was hard to feel so isolated in my situation. I began attending Al-Anon and easily put marijuana abuser in place of alcoholic in the steps, readings, conference approved literature. My Al-Anon family thankfully held my situation in the same regard as if it were alcohol, never saying it's just weed. I'm a year into recovery and so grateful.

[01:14:34] Because of this episode, I am aware that there are online Mar-Anon meetings I can now attend. Yes, the dispensary and street cannabis vapes. Edibles are so much stronger. People are getting addicted, but I think it's okay because it's just weed.

[01:14:49] Thank you for shedding light for so many people who are feeling isolated in this kind of situation. The episode is a gift. I'm so very grateful for receiving it.

[01:14:58] Thank you Marcelle, for writing, and again, I forwarded your email to Bart because he's the one who really deserves the thanks, for coming and talking about Mar-Anon.

[01:15:09] Got, A letter from an anonymous listener who writes, hi Spencer. I'm new to Al-Anon and have found your podcast so helpful and comforting. Thank you so much for all the energy you pour into your podcast. I wondered if you could do a podcast for parents of adult children who are alcoholics. There are some unique challenges that we face. You may have done this already and have not discovered that episode yet.

[01:15:32] Anonymous shares, I have a child with mental health issues who we suspect has substance abuse issues as well. I have found support from my Al-Anon family to be so comforting and I am finding new ways of being in this world. I would love to hear an episode for parents, which deals with how to support adult children who struggle with addiction.

[01:15:52] We want our child to feel loved and supported, but we do not want to contribute to the illness. When is it appropriate to help them financially and in what ways? We are helping with medical bills, for instance, and have offered some time limited financial support for basic needs. How do we detach with love?

[01:16:09] How do we set aside denial and address the elephant in the room with the adult child, siblings and spouses in ways that are helpful and avoid triangulation? How to deal with challenges of family vacations. How to respond to rage and abusive behavior. How to navigate getting help for them when appropriate. How do couples protect their own relationship from the stress of navigating this relationship with a troubled adult child? These are some of the many questions that we have.

[01:16:36] It seems that many of your podcasts have focused more on people in Al-Anon who have a partner who struggles with drinking. I have found all of your episodes extremely helpful, and I can apply the wisdom to my own situation, but I think there's a tremendous need for guidance and support of parents in this situation as well. Thank you for your consideration of this subject.

[01:16:56] I responded by email to the listener. There are several episodes that feature parents of alcoholics or addicts, and they are tagged with the term parent. So if you go to the website, the recovery show, click on the search tab in the menu, at the top of the screen if you're on a computer. It's the so-called hamburger menu if you're on a phone or a tablet. And then on the search page, look at the list of tag values and find parent and tap or click on that. You will see four episodes on the first page of results that are conversations with people struggling with their adult children's alcoholism or addiction. Specifically, we have episode 3 95, the relationship between Mother and Son, episode 3 55, A Son's Addiction, episode 3 22, Deborah C Hands Off, Pays Off, and 2 87 Mark and Michel's son is in prison. Also, the recent episode number 4 29 titled Grief and Relief with Eric, where he talks about some of the issues he's having with his adult daughter. not tagged with parent, but maybe it should be.

[01:18:16] Thanks for writing. Thanks for the topic and I'm sure we can always use more people sharing your experience, strength, and hope on this question of how to deal with the addiction, alcoholism of an adult child. If you have addressed some of the questions that our anonymous listener asked, please share them with us.

[01:18:40] Send an email to feedback at the recovery show or sign up to record an episode.

[01:18:48] Spencer: Tania left a comment on episode 4 25 titled Shortcomings and Self-Acceptance, step seven. Tania writes this Step seven show came at a perfect time in a perfect storm. I found Mary's comment that fear is not a character defect, useful to remember.

[01:19:07] If you ever wanna talk about rage, I would love to share my experience, strength, and hope on the topic. I have struggled with impulsivity and rage my whole life as a woman. This has been difficult. I often used it as a badge of honor, and my friends often used me as their battling ram. Yes, I managed to have friends. The program has helped immensely. But I would like to go deeper with you, Spencer, on the topic of rage as I feel and see you as a kindred spirit.

[01:19:31] Lastly, I loved your recognition of building your own self-esteem by being on time. Thank you for your incredible service and to all who make it happen.

[01:19:42] I wrote back to Tania and said, I would love to do an episode on rage with you.

[01:19:46] So we'll see.

[01:19:48] Kim commented on episode 1 42, oldie, but goodie, I guess, love and alcoholism.

[01:19:55] She writes, I would love to hear and understand more about detaching from an alcoholic spouse. I understand loving the person but not liking his actions. However, how do I carry on in this relationship when our goals are so misaligned for our future together?

[01:20:10] Also, I've made extreme efforts to understand addiction and alcoholism. He does not understand what it's like to be married to one, et cetera.

[01:20:19] That's a tough situation, Kim, and not giving advice here, but if you and your spouse really are that misaligned, maybe you're not meant to be together. I don't know. I carried on in my relationship with my alcoholic wife only by practicing the tools and the principles of the Al-Anon program, working the steps, going to a lot of meetings. Attending open AA meetings, because that's where I really learned about alcoholism, how it affects other people who are not my wife and who then I could more easily hear the message from. In the end, I decided I did wanna stay with her. I decided that before she found her own sobriety, I would not have been able to do that without having a couple of years in Al-Anon under my belt first, though.

[01:21:13] Mary commented on episode 4 29, grief and Relief.

[01:21:18] She says your stories were helpful. Thank you. What struck me was loss of the dream. I had such aspirations for my daughter. She was so bright with promise, but as an adult, she formed this habit and now my a d is in end stage liver failure. I'm not sure what a d addicted daughter. Alcoholic daughter. I also grieve that she chooses to not live the remainder of her life focused on life. It never occurred to me she wouldn't cherish what's left of her life and devote herself to living in health, once diagnosed. But she's not me and she's an alcoholic. I do realize I am not in control of her actions.

[01:21:56] She may still be drinking. She's relapsed several times and has ended up nearly comatose in the hospital, suffering from hepatic encephalopathy, something like that. Encephalopathy. There we go. I grieve that she's given up because she knows that by staying sober for six months she could get on a transplant list.

[01:22:16] She speaks of dying and seeing friends one last time rather than believing in the possibility she could survive with a transplant. So I am experiencing anticipatory grief and it is heart wrenching and brings it stress and anxiety for family. I want to let go, let God, but how can I let go when I have so little time left with her?

[01:22:36] Al-Anon's directives slash suggestions don't always make sense to me, especially re the mother child bond. Mary, I feel deeply for you and your situation.You might find episode 3 95, the relationship between mother and son or episode 3 55, a son's addiction helpful, in hearing the experience, strength of hope of a couple other people.

[01:23:02] I have a friend whose loved one had hepatic encephalopathy. It was really scary. Like really scary. Apparently it scared him into a new period of sobriety and he recently got a liver transplant. But man, hearing the symptoms of that disease, just wow, did not want to go there. I will put a link to a Cleveland Clinic article about hepatic encephalopathy. If you have never heard the terming, you're curious. or if you have run into it and wanna know more about it, that will be in the show notes at the recovery show slash 4 3 1.

[01:23:45] Sherryn sent us a voice memo with pronunciation of the Maori words and phrases in the email she sent in episode four 14.

[01:23:58] Sherryn: Kia ora Spencer and hello from Aotearoa, New Zealand. You did a really good job of attempting your pronunciation, so He pohū kererū, you should be proud. In terms of the bit that you didn't want to even attempt, Ngā mihi nui ki a koe i tō mahi pai ake, many thanks for you for your good work. Always happy to speak Maori to people who are interested in hearing it.

[01:24:22] Kia pai tō rā! Have a good day.

[01:24:25] Spencer: Thank you, Sherryn for that pronunciation lesson. I really appreciate it.

[01:24:30] Pat sent a voice memo.

[01:24:33] Pat: Hi Spencer, this is Pat from the West Coast. I'm calling about the recent episode with Eric about grief and relief. I know it just hurts my heart to hear his voice so sad and dejected sounding. He usually has so much joy even when he is been in rough times.

[01:24:51] I'm so sorry you're there, Eric. Regarding grief, I have a lot of thoughts about it. For me right now, my grief is a longer time away. I haven't had acute episodes of grief recently, but it's kind of like a big heavy train that even after you stop driving the engine, there's still all this momentum and it carries its way through life.

[01:25:18] Grief is for the long haul, I think. And I'll have events occur randomly that remind me of people that I've lost or situations that I have grieved in the past and it does bring it up fresh. I think there is just that simple. If you're talking about tools in tincture of time, just really helps with grief. It's doesn't stay as acute. But I find grief is really tied up with regret. For past actions with self recrimination. It's tied up with a false sense of control that I had any control maybe over the choices that other people are making.

[01:25:58] It was mentioned about that fantasy life and the grief that we have over unrealistic expectations of what our lives might have been like, or our children or spouses or whoever else. And then trying to control them. So looking at the tools, the three Cs are very helpful to me. Putting it in perspective is very helpful. When I fall back to blaming myself, castigating myself for what I was as a parent or as a spouse or as a daughter, it's really important for me to look at what was my part in it. Doing a step four on individual issues. We haven't mentioned this in a long time on the podcast. That is such a useful tool. To sit down with a sponsor and really look at it and say, what was my part in it? Did I have a part in this? And even if I did, what do I wanna do differently next time? And giving ourselves the grace of being a learning human being is so important. The other thing that struck me when I was listening to the episode a second time is Eric mentioned being right back at step one and the beauty of Al-Anon is that once you've gone through those steps, I find that when I fall back to step one, moving forward again, using the program tools. I've been there before. I know what that path of recovery is like for me to look at a situation or something that was challenging. It's easier, it's faster, it's smoother. I have some knowledge and some wisdom that I've gained over the time and I know myself better. I'm more readily able to be honest with myself. And it just makes that resolution a lot easier for me. So those are the things I was thinking about around grief.

[01:27:57] And then interestingly, this really ties in with some episodes you've done in the last few months about retirement, and aging. And while I'm not at retirement yet, I've made a couple big choices. One of the most important probably is to shred all of my old Al-Anon journals. That sounds pretty harsh, but at the same time, those were written for me. I have faith that I remember the lessons learned. That if I don't remember what was written there or what a aha moment I had, at some point in time I can go ahead and learn it again and I'll learn it faster.

[01:28:34] But I don't want the people that I love to read those and misinterpret them or become hurt by them. I have gone through and taken every single shred of any Al-Anon journaling. There's no historical data there that's of value and I'm shredding that. The other thing is that I've been processing my photos and going through, and they were all over the place and photo albums and loose and in packets. And so I've gone through and I've looked at all of them and I've put them into chronological order and thrown out the ones I didn't think I wanted to digitize.

[01:29:10] That has been a very joyful process. It's also been painful because of course I am seeing pictures of my first husband. When we were a young couple and very much in love and when we had young children and were really enjoying our life together. Before that demon alcohol got ahold of him and he was dancing with that gorilla and he never made it out of the cage. That gorilla just danced him to death. So there you go. There's still grief there. It's been years. And that's okay. It's okay. And in some ways it's really reassuring that I can remember the good times and that I can still be sad that he had the life he had and that he died the way he did.

[01:29:53] So that's even I smile as I get a little choked up here. So there you go. Little bittersweet as I work towards my aging and my retirement, I have a few more years. Thank you so much for all of your work. Both Eric and Spencer. And Eric. My heart is with you and I wish for you good Al-Anon journeys around this very difficult time.

[01:30:20] Thank you. Bye-bye.

[01:30:22] Spencer: Thank you, Pat, for sharing that experience, strength, and hope. I don't have anything to add to it. Thanks.

[01:30:29] I had some correspondence with Kathie. She had found a daily reader, titled If You Leave Me, Can I Come With You? Subtitle is Daily Meditations for Codependents and Al-Anons, parentheses with a sense of humor. The author is one Misti B and Karen thought, maybe it's that same Misti who was on episode 4 27 about cutting contact. I wrote to Misti and said, Hey, is this you? And she said, no, it's not. It's a different Misti.

[01:31:00] It is a wonderful book, which gives me a daily dose of recovery principles with a little bit of a chuckle or sometimes even a full laugh.

[01:31:10] With the book, Kathie . Wrote a very nice note on a card. The card on the front says gratitude changes everything, and it has a little ribbon and a bow like it's a gift, which you know it is. So thank you again, Kathie.

[01:31:25] She writes, dear Spencer, I want to express my deep gratitude for all the work and content you put into the recovery show. When I first came into Al-Anon, I was angry and lost. I was convinced I wouldn't stick around. I. Walking away has always been one of my character defects. At the time I knew I needed to leave my alcoholic boyfriend. I kept hearing the phrase, detach with love in meanings. I was completely perplexed by this concept. That curiosity led me down a Google rabbit hole, which is how I found your podcast. I ended up hearing exactly what I needed too. You and your guests. I would guess, Eric, helped me understand what detach with love truly meant. From that point on your episodes became a daily part of my long commute to work.

[01:32:12] One episode led to another and then another. All while I continued going to meetings. Slowly I started to get it. Now, four years later, I'm still here. I. I've worked through the steps with my sponsor. I have sponsees of my own and am active in service. I love my Al-Anon circle of friends, and I truly love this new way of life.

[01:32:34] My life isn't perfect, but I know I can get through anything with my higher power and my program. I can't thank you enough for being there for me in those crucial early days. I'm sure you've helped more people than you can even imagine. I am forever grateful for you and all of your guests. In Love in Program, Kathie.

[01:32:57] Thank you for the book and thank you for that lovely note, Kathie.

Thank you, Katie and Karen

[01:33:03] Spencer: Katie and Karen, I wanna thank you for this conversation today. This has been just so much fun. I'm sure that there are people out there who are gonna get so much from your experience, strength, and hope that you shared here today.

[01:33:17] Katie P: Thank you for having us. This

[01:33:19] Karen B: Such a treat, a dream come true, really honestly.

[01:33:25] Spencer: Before you go, is there anything of yours that you wanna talk about? Promote? You've got a podcast, which I don't think we said the name of earlier.

[01:33:35] Katie P: Yes, it's, Supernova Support and you can find us on Apple Podcasts, Spotify. We also have a Substack, which is our home base right now while our website's getting created. So if you put in substack Supernova Support. Karen is an amazing writer, not only songwriter, but writer in general. And she's writes these beautiful posts for us. We also post some very silly videos of us.The podcast, we are on a little bit of a break, but we'll be getting back into our second season soon. There are eight episodes that people can listen to

[01:34:11] Karen B: But the song salons though, is something we could say because they're online. We have these song salons that are so much fun. if you're a songwriter, but even if you're not a songwriter, just you're just interested in it. Or if you're thinking about writing songs. If you go on that substack, it'll have a link to our song salons where you come and you bring a song. You can either share like an MP three or you can even play it live. And we do this process that we do, which is really just strength-based feedback. And if you have questions and things, we'll work on it too, a little bit with you.

[01:34:41] it's delightful. We have so much fun and we leave feeling like new life,for our songs that we thought maybe weren't that worthwhile and we come back. What? They're amazing and, we feel mutually encouraged and supported and so we'd love to have anyone there 'cause it's online can be from anywhere.

[01:34:56]

[01:34:56] Spencer: Cool. I will have links in the show notes at the recovery dot show slash 4 3 1.

[01:35:04] Karen B: Yeah.

[01:35:04] Spencer: To the substack, to the podcast. The podcast on probably Apple and Spotify. I'll have those links.

[01:35:12] Thank you so much.

Song 3

[01:35:14] Spencer: You know, I was gonna leave it at you guys each brought one song, but then you're like, here's a couple of songs that we like

[01:35:21] that,

[01:35:21] Katie P: I know I I couldn't help, but I was thinking about it on the way over because I was like, oh,

[01:35:26] everyone recommends songs,

[01:35:29] Spencer: go for it. You and, okay, so here's the thing. I usually put links or videos. If we have videos, which I think we don't for your two songs, right Yeah. Okay, that's fine.

[01:35:40] Anyway, tell us about the song that, you wanted to, promote or whatever here.

[01:35:44] Katie P: Yeah. the song that just came to me while I was driving over to Karen's, is the song Hurricane by Brandy Carlisle. First of all, just musically, it's a really stunning song. Brilliant three part Harmony. It speaks to someone's experience with dealing with someone in addiction. The line that is the killer is you can dance in a hurricane, but only if you're standing in the eye.

[01:36:07] It just speaks to the chaos and the heartbreak. that comes when you're in that push and pull of that dynamic.

[01:36:15] It's just a gorgeous song. Her voice is so crazy. And the twins who are in her band, their harmonies are flawless. So musically it's a masterpiece. And then the message really resonates with what we're talking about.

[01:36:29] Oh, yeah, I think it is called The Eye. I don't think it's called hurricane.

[01:36:32] It was a song that we used to cover, and I am a very emotional person and would oftentimes in rehearsal, not be able to get through it. And I was like singing the melody, so I kinda had to, so I also have that special connection to it, that it was just a song that we sang. And, it, it's a brilliant tune.

[01:36:49] Spencer: Sometimes I don't know how you guys do that,

[01:36:52] Karen B: Yeah,

[01:36:53] Spencer:

[01:36:53] Karen B: it's challenging.

[01:36:55] Spencer: All right. thank you again.

[01:36:58] Katie P: Oh, Thank you, Spencer.

[01:37:00] Karen B: you.

Closing

[01:37:06] Spencer: thank you for listening and please keep coming back. Whatever your problems, there are those among us who have had them too. If we did not talk about a problem you're facing today, feel free to contact us so that we can talk about it in a future episode. May understanding, love and peace grow in you one day at a time.