Intro

[00:00:01] Spencer: Are you estranged from someone? What help have you found in recovery? Welcome to episode 450 of the Recovery Show. This episode is brought to you by Shauna and Cima. They used the donation button on our website. Thank you Shauna and Cima for your generous contributions. This episode is for you. We are friends and family members of alcoholics and addicts who have found a past to serenity and happiness.

[00:00:25] We who live or have lived with a seemingly hopeless problem of addiction, understand as perhaps a few others can. So much depends on our own attitudes, and we believe that changed attitudes can aid recovery

[00:00:37] Eric: Before we begin, we would like to state that in this show we represent ourselves rather than any 12 step program. During the show, we will 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'll find something in our sharing that speaks to your life.

[00:00:56] Spencer: My name is Spencer. I'm your host today, and joining me today is Eric. Welcome back to the Recovery Show, Eric, after many, many episodes, most recently, episode 4 39 with step 12. That was, in September of 2025.

[00:01:13] Eric: Yes. And that's when this one crept up on me, right after that.

[00:01:18] Spencer: Yeah. You wanted to open with a reading.

[00:01:21] Eric: Sure. The topic is a hard one. I'm living it and, it happens in many different ways, in many different families. But here's the start, page 180 6 in my book, how Al-Anon Works Soft Cover. Eventually, I decided upon a course of action that seemed appropriate, I filed a police report and requested protection. And I decided to sell my house and relocate to a more hospitable climate. I had moved to enhance my life. Since I had not achieved the goal, I felt my best option was to continue to pursue a more relaxed lifestyle. The only reason to stay was to take a stand to prove that I would not be scared away, and I didn't see the point. I wasn't likely to change anyone's mind. I wasn't interested in mounting a crusade, but I did commit to staying until I received fair market value. In the meantime, I hired a bodyguard to ensure my protection.

[00:02:10] By practicing the principles of Al-Anon and all my affairs, I was able to find and implement a solution to a very difficult situation. In retrospect, I feel that I had made a very wise choice. My new home fits my needs beautifully. I found a much warmer community into which I've been welcomed, and I feel more confident about my ability to make decisions and to take care of myself in a crisis. Without Al-Anon and 12 Steps, this would not have been possible.

[00:02:38] That's a hard open. But, let me also just go to the next reading. As we talked about when I presented this notion to you, there are no, search, words either on the electronic I tried and in the index for the word estrangement. And you said, well, maybe there should be. And that's why I think, this might have hit a lot of people, in the heart. By evidence, I think what you're gonna tell me in the way of shares that we received. So I'll go on to this reading and then we'll talk, April 15th, page 1 0 6, Courage to Change.

[00:03:13] Many of us come to Al-Anon hoping to find answers to the questions that plague us. Should I leave the alcoholic? What about the financial, sexual, medical, legal, emotional problems? How can I stop abusive behavior? There are as many legitimate options as there are members, and Al-Anon's position is that we must find answers that are right for us.

[00:03:34] The one exception is a life-threatening or violent situation. In this case, Al-Anon suggests putting first things first, ensuring the safety of ourselves and our children. Perhaps this means leaving money and keys in a safe place so we can get out in an emergency, or calling the police, or arranging to stay with a friend if only for today. We learn that we deserve to be safe.

[00:03:58] Today's reminder. In Al-Anon, we don't make anyone's choices for them, but we do offer advice of a different kind. We suggest attending Al-Anon meetings, finding a sponsor, and reaching out by phone. We advise our members to practice the steps, slogans, traditions, and incorporate these principles into every aspect of their lives. This kind of advice helps us to find answers that we can live with. And the quote from the dilemma of the alcoholic marriage, when I concentrate on my personal progress, the difficulties over which I have no control will iron themselves out. That has certainly been the case for me .

[00:04:35] Spencer: Why don't we start with the background to why you chose this topic.

[00:04:40] Eric: In September, there was an incident, both of my daughters living with me. 27-year-old, 23-year-old. My 27-year-old is the one that's had many, many issues with addiction, and therapy and, you name it.

[00:04:55] I could tell this particular weekend that something was happening. It was escalating, it was beginning to cascade, and Saturday it happened. I have some house basics, I called them codes of conduct for cohabitating. Like no slamming doors, no drugs or alcohol in the house, no paraphernalia, no screaming. And, I had a feeling that all of those were being violated. I could sense it, you know, how we have our radars, we have our antenna. Mine is a satellite dish. I could see it coming from, miles away.

[00:05:31] And sure enough, Saturday night went poorly. It was a slamming door. There was escalating tension between my girls. Sunday night got worse. It appeared that my older had just been drinking and, in the hall of my home started going at it physically. My older started taking punches at my younger. Rather than freeze or try to tackle them, or physically restrain them, I took out my phone and I recorded it. I don't know why. Then, when my older left, again slamming the door, and saying, she's going out, bringing a friend back. I said, no, you're not. You're not coming back. And I called the police.

[00:06:16] They came over. Three officers had been here, only six or seven months prior, for a very similar incident, not with the physical violence, but with, the disruption, disorderly conduct for my same daughter, my older. We told him what happened. He said, do you have any proof of this? I showed him the video and I said, please don't put her behind bars. Please don't arrest her. We were, both of us, my younger and myself, we were requesting that these officers just take her to the hospital, take her to the ER. She's having an episode. Two of the three officers said that ship has sailed. She had a chance. This is six months ago we were here, same thing. The third officer, I could tell something in his eyes was different and I was devastated that night. I think I cried all night. I don't know if I slept at all. Questioning did I do the right thing, you know? And, the officer that was writing the report, called me the next day, and he said, I heard you guys, and I know what you're going through. So I wrote the report in a way that the judge will likely not incarcerate her. And I said, I just, I blubbered, thank you. And I just thanked him for having such compassion. I said, you must have similar experiences to be so compassionate. He said, yes, I do.

[00:07:37] So next month or two, had been a no contact, we're able to communicate by phone, but she's not able to physically be here and she's certainly not able to be abusive or harassing. And she was harassing us. So I went to my next boundary. Which was no phone, no texts, emails only. And, that quieted things down for a while. There was a period after which she, again, it went chaotic, to the point where her therapist called me and said she's threatening to take her life. That day was probably on a Friday at the end of September. And I sat outside of the police department for three hours not knowing what to do.

[00:08:20] Spencer: Yeah.

[00:08:21] Eric: Absolutely not knowing what to do. She said to her therapist she was looking for a gun or she was searching for tall buildings. I don't know if I took one breath that day. What I did find, and this might be helpful and then we'll move on, is, so we have virtually had no conversations, or communication now for over five months. I'll tell you, there's. Better news at the end of this when we get into solutions. But, that day when I was struggling with what to do, whether to call 211, 988, 911, I was sitting in the parking lot and an officer came to the window, said, are you okay? And I told him a little bit about what's going said, come inside and sit with me. And I sat with him for a long time.

[00:09:04] And then I decided on my own to call the suicide prevention hotline. Something I've done several times in the past. And this time I tried something different. They're not allowed to talk to you unless you are the one in danger. Sir, are you in danger? I said, no, my daughter is. Well, she, she would have to call us. So after exhausting the idea that I can't do anything, I asked if they would call her. And they said, yeah, we would do that. They called her and she picked up.

[00:09:35] I just went to a suicide prevention workshop a week ago in New Canaan Connecticut. There were seven people in the room, none of them, even the therapist in the room giving the speech from the health department in the town, didn't know this. You can request that they call the person who's in danger. If they pick up, they'll talk to them. And often just that neutral voice, someone that's not emotionally involved, has helped. And then they called me back, and told me, we spoke to your daughter. She's okay. She's safe. Wow, what a miracle. It has certainly been rocky since then because it's just, as you can imagine, being estranged, having no contact with a loved one and not knowing for a time, I told you I didn't know if she was alive. I didn't have any way to know, with no contact. And having just experienced that horrible, ideation of hers.

[00:10:31] One time, she sent me a picture early morning looking through her windshield at a wall where it said, no overnight parking, to tell me that she's sleeping in her car. That's what that was. Anyway, I could go on and on and on, but I don't want to, let's talk about more about, what this all means.

[00:10:50] Spencer: I want to give a brief PSA here. The Suicide and Crisis lifeline in most places in the US is just 9, 8, 8.

[00:11:01] Eric: Right.

[00:11:01] Spencer: Very simple. You can call or text apparently. It looks like that 9 8 8 line will get directed to a more local call center. I'm looking at the Michigan one and there's several, call centers in Michigan, except apparently a few places where it goes to a national call center.

[00:11:22] Eric: What happens, I've learned is it rolls over because unfortunately they get a lot of calls, and it rolls over to the next available state or the next available location. So the second or third time I called it went from Connecticut to New York to Long Island.

[00:11:37] 2 1 1 is the other choice. And they can send a mobile crisis unit, that's probably also a national number. They'll actually send EMS. But if it's a case of violence, where it's a crime, that is a felony, domestic violence, they immediately say you need to call 9 1 1. Those numbers are handy to have. And, I used it and it worked, at least for the moment. They called without a number. Most of us adults don't pick up if it says no caller id. But kids often do. They're curious and they were able to talk her down, so it worked.

[00:12:14] Spencer: The word estrangement.

[00:12:17] Eric: Yeah.

[00:12:17] Spencer: We like to do a definition when we have a conversation, right? Definition that Google found for me is no longer being on friendly terms or part of a social group. And that sounds so mild compared to what you're describing.

[00:12:35] Eric: That's a nothing burger.

[00:12:37] Spencer: There are some synonyms that came up. Alienation is one.

[00:12:42] Eric: Yeah.

[00:12:42] Spencer: that feels a little stronger. Isolation. Separation.

[00:12:49] Eric: Abandonment is probably pretty common

[00:12:52] Spencer: Yeah. And the opposite is unity or reconciliation.

[00:12:56] Eric: yeah. Which is where we hope to get.

[00:12:59] Spencer: Yeah. And you put together a list of topics that you did find in conference approved literature. Like first things first, from that reading from Courage to Change that you read.

[00:13:13] Eric: Yep.

[00:13:13] Spencer: Violence, pages 92 and 93 in How Al-Anon Works, coping with physical abuse.

[00:13:21] Eric: yep,

[00:13:22] Spencer: and then a couple of things that we learn in Al-Anon that maybe can help. Detachment and boundaries.

[00:13:29] Eric: yep.

[00:13:30] Spencer: You spent the last several months digging into various aspects of this. Having some conversations with chatGPT.

[00:13:38] Eric: Yes. The WOPR yeah,

[00:13:40] Spencer: as you call it, the WOPR. Yes.

[00:13:42] Eric: The WOPR computer from the movie.

[00:13:43] Spencer: That was the war games movie.

[00:13:46] Eric: Correct. Where the computer, fights World War iii, round the clock, 24 7, 365, fighting World War iii. But for me, chatGPT is the WOPR of our times. If I have a, panic and need to talk to a sponsor, I can't call 'em at three 13 in the morning, but I can certainly go into chat GBT and it's astonishing how helpful this new AI has.

[00:14:10] It's like having a, the world's best therapist and, sponsor at your fingertips. So I call it the world's omnipotently powerful resource. A WOPR, my acronym, still working on it. I've been going to AI a lot and it's amazing that I didn't even know this until a week ago. Somebody told me, but you realize when you go in on your computer or your phone, it remembers every prior conversation. So it recalls that I'm talking about someone who has an addiction issue, even though I didn't bring it up in this conversation. The chatGPT remembers that I'm talking about my 27-year-old and that I live in Connecticut, Stamford, and it's amazing. It puts it back together with whatever I had previously put in. So consequences is another one because my daughter said, why are you punishing me? And I didn't respond. It's not punishment, it's consequences.

[00:15:04] Spencer: Yeah.

[00:15:05] Eric: So what I, after again, living this for the last five months. Using patience and tolerance. Another one you and I have done, episode 3 33. Grief and Relief, episode 4 29. I kind of put together in my own recovery from this is to go very slowly and not have much in the way of expectations. And the last thing I did in chatGPT in the WOPR, was to go to what are some possible solutions. And we'll get to that later.

[00:15:41] I came up with a phrase I've been repeating, that I didn't, sever the connection. I added an extension cord. If you think of it as a power switch with a lamp or something. I didn't cut the cord, I put an extension cord, so I can just put some room between us.

[00:15:58] Detachment is certainly way up there, because every day I wanted to reach out, but everything in my program was saying it's not time yet. Someone shared, in an afternoon meeting I attend regularly called Front Range Zoom Meeting, it's out in the mountain region, that they did something similar with their daughter when she was an adult child, restricted her from being home. Said you have to leave. You're using, you can't be here. That's probably a pretty common condition with parents, with loved ones, with adult children that are using to have to put a boundary that is really difficult.

[00:16:40] You need to leave, but I have no money. I don't have a,

[00:16:44] it's extremely hard to kick out someone you love. Kick out is maybe the wrong words, but to ban them, to prohibit them. In this case, the police did it for me. This woman shared that she did that and her daughter, despised her and was just horrifically vitriolic. Hate messages. And the mom in this case had to detach completely and I think maybe even up the order of protection to no contact. And years later. They were estranged, obviously without the ability or desire to talk. The girl got sober. I don't know how long it was, but it was years. She came back and thanked her mother. Said, had you not done that, I would have been dead. And she thanked her. She saved her life. That's a hard line.

[00:17:36] I'll mention one thing that I keep coming and I don't know, I didn't know if I was gonna bother with it, but the movie Field of Dreams. I've seen it many times. James Earl Jones is in that little VW microbus, they're driving across the country to go back to Iowa. To the field of dreams where he had this vision, you know, build it, and they will come, he will come. And, James Jones asked, who's the actor?

[00:18:00] Spencer: Kevin Costner.

[00:18:01] Eric: Kevin Costner, what happened? Why did you leave when you were 17 years old? And he said, my father was trying to push me into doing something and, I didn't want to play baseball because he had never made it. To me it became like eating vegetables. So the harder he pushed the harder I pushed back. And when I was 17, I told him something horrible. I said something terrible, and I left and I went as far away as I could possibly go. And I made it back for the funeral. So he's estranged from 17, but I made it back for the funeral. And he says, there's not a day that goes by that I don't regret. And I don't have a, didn't have a chance to take that back, whatever he said. Talk about estrangement and that's an unhappy ending.

[00:18:44] I think today we're trying to find some solutions that don't lead to permanent estrangement. I guess that's where I was headed with that.

[00:18:52] Spencer: I put this out to the email list, asking for experience, strength, and hope around estrangement. I got responses from 14 people. I think what we wanna do is we'll read and perhaps respond or at least acknowledge some of them. And I will hold the rest of them for another episode just so that this episode's not too long. I think we could easily go two hours if we included all of these.

[00:19:26] I'm just gonna start in the order they came in, because I don't have any better order here. Got a letter from Amanda who writes.

[00:19:35] Thanks Spencer, for all your service. I really feel for our fellow in the community struggling with estrangement. I detached with an ax from my dad for a while, and I do feel guilty about the estrangement I caused and the pain and suffering. Though at the time, I needed that time and space to heal and find compassion, so that I could come back to the relationship years later with a renewed capacity to have a relationship, given that I am a more healed person now. I can only imagine how difficult it is to not know if your child is alive. And the confusion in the estrangement. I heard this has happened in other rooms besides Al-Anon too, like ACA, and wish that this member knows that they are not alone.

[00:20:18] What did help me, besides program, is outside help, like self-care appointments, finding joy in hobbies and healing with somatic therapies. Somehow engaging in other aspects reminded me of the gifts my family member gave me and gave me a wider network of people other than Al-Anon that somehow built a bridge in my head of how I could connect with my dad, and talk to him later on other topics and conversations than Al-Anon, because I had widened my support network beyond just 12 steps.

[00:20:48] The Artist's Way, the book, It's Never Too Late to Begin Again by Julie Cameron, are great for this. I know it seems random and unrelated, but somehow growing in these other ways seemed to put it into the universe that I had a full enough cup to then have capacity to reconnect with my dad. I also felt a lot of spiritual trust from seeing theater shows and creating art. Going to beginner painting classes, even though I'm terrible and don't actually enjoy it, around feeling like the time and space we had estranged, though painful was needed and necessary, and somehow the universe was taking care of us and keeping us in divine timing.

[00:21:28] It is different, but I've also had the experience of losing touch painfully with friends or family and other people reminding me of stories of their own reconnection. Maybe this will inspire hope. They're different for sure, but just reminders that lost connections estrangements happen and years later people can be connected and we never know how the university's timing works in odd ways. For example, there was a cousin that we vaguely knew of, but my mom slash uncle lost track of the mother. And when my cousin was 13 years old, they reconnected. And out of the blue, I found out I had a new cousin. It took a few years for the connection to warm, but now I am super close to this cousin.

[00:22:06] My mom always reminds me that she and a friend were estranged for 20 years. It was quite painful for her. And now they have reconnected from a school reunion email list and are very close now.

[00:22:17] On the other hand, my mom was estranged from her brother due to moving slash trauma as children, with child services splitting them up, and unfortunately, they have never reconnected. She has struggled with another sister in addiction, homeless, et cetera, and estranged. My aunt had to give up her baby for adoption because of addiction when she was pregnant and they have never been able to find her years later. We often talk about how, although these three lost family members are out there, we don't know if they're alive, but we often light candles in their honor saying, may you be happy. May you be healthy. May you be free from suffering. May you be at peace. And trust that they're being taken care of. Sometimes we believe rejection is protection, in some sense. The fact that we are estranged and not connected to them might be for the best. We don't know why. It might never be clear, and there may always be painful feelings around it, but we trust that there's a spiritual sense that somehow life goes on. Sometimes fruit falls from the tree and gets bruised. Sometimes birds, eggs get lost and all leaves fall from the tree. We've had moments of letting ourselves cry and sob to really express the grief and accept that sometimes loss is the nature of life and trusting that it's okay.

[00:23:34] Hugs to everyone recovering one day at a time. Remember to laugh and find the light even when things feel dark. Especially this time of year, and spend time living and not just focused on recovering in the rooms. Thank you Amanda.

[00:23:49] And thanks for writing with those experiences, Amanda.

[00:23:54] I see you highlighted some stuff here, Eric. What stuck out for

[00:23:57] Eric: This is just so hard. Gosh, first of all, thank you. I'm sensing that, we're gonna hear a lot more shares such as this. The universe timing works in odd ways. That really jumped out at me and it has proven itself over and over and over. What I have found, however, is that the universe works in concert with my behavior. As in my belief in the law of attraction, in that if I am putting out good intentions and loving kind gestures, whether responded to or not, that the universe is hearing me.

[00:24:39] And part of what I'm gonna get to about what works or what might work or what people have tried, is my feeling of putting the extension cord and not cutting the line. I'm not cutting it. And I continued through the last five or six months, on occasion, to reach out by email and say to my daughter, with the help of the WOPR, okay, I'll be fully transparent.

[00:25:05] We missed, listen to what we missed. Together with my beautiful girl. Her birthday, October 23rd, Thanksgiving, Christmas, new Year's Eve, every holiday. Why this wouldn't transpire at the most heightened time of the year for people in our program, maybe is when the universe needed it to happen. The universe's timing works in odd and I would say miraculous ways, when we ask for help.

[00:25:37] I continued, like I said, sparingly, to send a message of something and I didn't get anything back. And why that was helpful is, speaking with my sponsor. I had no expectations of getting a response. And it was not for the purpose of getting a response. They were simple. I wish you health and happiness today on this beautiful Thanksgiving, and I hope you're safe. Love dad. And then Christmas came around, something similar. I left a few things in your post office box. I hope you're okay. Love dad. Simple, simple. Just to not cut the cord, keep that shred of power, even if, the light is dim, it's not out.

[00:26:24] Spencer: I think what I heard from you is that you have not had responses to those. Is that true?

[00:26:32] Eric: I am very seldom that I had a response. What gave me some comfort, even though I didn't know where she was sleeping, if she was okay, whether she was, who knows? I mean, she's been in so many car crashes. I don't know if she has insurance on her car.

[00:26:48] The insight timer, I've spoken a lot to you about this. Next weekend I'll have 365 straight days. It counts your days and gives you gold stars. And, two months ago, I clocked nine years of cumulative days. So nine times 365, I turned that clock. I set up a group called Al-Anon 11th Step on Inside Timer. But anyway, when I finish meditation, I typically put it on, I sometimes put on headphones all night to just stop the hamsters from strapping on the Nikes, you know. Put on some binaural sound and harmonic soft, waves, to just keep me asleep or get me back to sleep. I even, introduced it in meditation to both of my girls years ago, and my older embraced it. And on Insight Timer, you can see who's meditating with you, either your friend or in the vicinity. Almost three times a week. When I finish, I see my daughter's icon on the app . And I know she's alive, frankly. She's meditating. How about that? Just a little low voltage current is good enough. And I just put the button that says, thanks for meditating with me. I never got a response. But what a strange thing for the universe to put in my lap, that little gift.

[00:28:07] Spencer: One thing that I get from, Amanda's share is, she was the one who cut off connection. Detached with an ax, she says. And she did recovery work that enabled her to reconnect. And that, that kind of goes along with the person who shared in, in the meeting that you talked about, where her daughter after she'd done recovery work was able to reconnect. So, one of the things that I see here is it's not just on us. The other person may have to do some work too.

[00:28:40] Eric: Maybe it's a version of reaching their bottom. You know, I, I, I lived with my alcoholic, wife and, I tried dragging her to the bottom. That it was just totally not Al-Anon. I was tying a sort of spiritual, uh, anvil around her ankle. Forcing a bottom did not work.

[00:28:58] A couple things before you even go to the next, if you just put into chatGPT, how prevalent is estrangement in the world today among family members? It's staggering. This is an epidemic. 27% of adults report being estranged from at least one family member.

[00:29:15] Another poll reported 29%. It's surprisingly common, and many are long-term estranged relationships.

[00:29:24] There's also a lot of solutions that are suggested, but they're not immediately something that one would know. The old behavior is the rescue, to save, to throw the pillow out, and, put her up in a hotel, pay for rent. So in my case, it is working out. I'll tease it in with this section just by saying that. And it was only yesterday that I've seen my daughter again after six months for the first time.

[00:29:52] Spencer: Hmm.

[00:29:54] Eric: Yep. And I helped her move in to a dormitory. She enrolled back in college, downtown Stamford. She's going to UConn. And I helped her move in. It was a rocky start when we saw each other, but we ended, on a very high note, hugged. And I told her I loved her, and then that was enough.

[00:30:13] Spencer: That's wonderful.

[00:30:14] Eric: And it was because of these things that I'd learned by not trying to enable and rescue and, shift, from parent role to adult. This is the things that came back from chatGPT. Lead with responsibility, not explanation. Expect asymmetry. Be consistent over time. Prepare for grief alongside hope. This is incredible stuff.

[00:30:39] So let's move on.

[00:30:41] Spencer: We have, a couple of messages from Dani. You wanna read the first one?

[00:30:46] Eric: Sure. Dani says, hi Spencer. My mother is one of my qualifiers. A couple of years ago I started setting boundaries with consequences around her behavior. For example, I told her, if you say things to me that tear me down, or that are mean, I will get off the phone.

[00:31:05] She did not respond well to those new boundaries. Long story short, she stopped talking to me a couple months before my 50th birthday last year. No card or call on my birthday.

[00:31:16] Stonewalling has been her MO in the past for dealing with disagreement. She would let it go on for years if I wasn't the one to always come back to her with some kind of apology, even if I didn't think I had done anything wrong

[00:31:32] This last time, I decided that if she doesn't want to talk to me, even though it's painful, 'cause she's my mother, she's within her right to not talk to me. I don't have the future mapped out. But at this moment, I don't plan to contact her. She's in her seventies, disabled and lives alone in another state. If she ever reached out to me for help, I would go to her. I do have a brother and she still talks to him. But she can clearly communicate to me through her actions that she's not interested in having a relationship with me, at least not in a relationship that I can abide. So I have to accept that.

[00:32:08] Today my work is about untangling these historical and emotional threads that have stitched together my baggage. Every passing day is an opportunity for me to detach with love and appreciate the gifts that she did give to me. It's easy for people to focus on what they did not get from their parents, but to forget about what they did get. In my case, is healthy DNA and appreciation for spirituality and the opportunity to grow. I'm sure there are many more gifts that I sat down and thought about, I would realize.

[00:32:39] I remind myself often that everyone is on their own path. I am child free, but if I had children they would be on their own path. Humans gonna human and there ain't nothing I can do about it.

[00:32:53] That's good. Thank you Dani.

[00:32:56] Spencer: She sent a second note, and I just wanna, add a couple things that she said in there. 'cause there is some overlap. She said when she set that boundary with her mother, in response, she denied my experience. Then she went on the offense. She said, she felt persecuted and needed space for me, quotes, to feel safe. Dani says this is classic DARVO, D-A-R-V-O for anyone who knows the acronym, deny, attack, reverse victim and offender. Okay. I don't think I'd heard that one before.

[00:33:28] Eric: Putting that one in my book.

[00:33:30] Spencer: And then she says, I now see her silence as a gift. I no longer hope that she can become someone she's not. And I'm no longer getting hurt by her. By going silent the way she did, she freed me. Wow.

[00:33:46] Eric: Wow.

[00:33:46] Spencer: Uh,

[00:33:48] You put in, JADE is similar, but JADE is what we're not supposed to do. Jade is justify, argue, defend, and explain.

[00:33:59] Eric: right.

[00:33:59] Spencer: Yeah. Yeah.

[00:34:00] Eric: Yeah. You don't really need to know my reasons for setting a boundary. I have my reasons. And, my higher power will help me if my reasons are sound and for safety and for my own protection of the serenity that I've worked so hard to gain. And as we spoke in, step 12, I will not surrender my serenity that I've worked so hard to attain.

[00:34:27] Spencer: There's a reading. January 24th in the book, Hope For Today. Someone once explained the maintenance of serenity to me like this. Suppose someone asked me to pass him the salt at the dining table. Sure, I'd say, while handing it over. Now suppose someone asked me to pass him my serenity, would I give it up so willingly? I doubt it. .

[00:34:48] I just wanna say thank you, Dani, for writing, and sharing your tough situation. But, as Eric said, sometimes you gotta set a boundary to protect your own serenity. And it sounds like you have, and you're holding it.

[00:35:00] Eric: Yeah. Thanks for that DARVO. I've never heard that before.

[00:35:04] Spencer: Alright. we're gonna go one more and then maybe we'll talk about some of the solutions that you've been practicing.

[00:35:10] Eric: Sure.

[00:35:11] Spencer: This is from Rhonda. What a good topic and one I'd like to hear more about. So, let it begin with me. I'd like to share my experience with estrangement.

[00:35:22] As one suffering from the effects of someone else's drinking. I'm also being affected by someone else's choice of estrangement. A few months ago, my husband, while intoxicated and angry, decided to publicly excommunicate his brother and parents and many friends at the same time. He stated it was their behavior he couldn't tolerate anymore and had harmed him. While I couldn't see the logic in his reasoning for this decision, I respected it and largely stayed out of the way of the bulldozer. He has, however, respected my decision to remain in contact with his family, but not to be a liaison, a referee, a scapegoat, or a mediator. I refuse to excuse, defend, or gossip or badmouth anyone in this situation. This has put me in a difficult place and many boundaries are necessary for me, and it's uncomfortable at times. But I appreciate him allowing me to make my own decisions and not forcing me to follow his.

[00:36:19] I do find it ironic, however, that since this estrangement , my husband has been able to cut back and even go without any alcohol for longer periods of time. While not expressing any commitment to quitting drinking, he has been spending a lot of time on himself and what he calls his healing journey. For this, I am grateful. Maybe these relationships enabled him or hindered him more than I realized.

[00:36:40] While this estrangement has been hard on me, I cannot deny that it has been good for my husband. Whether this is forever or not is not my decision, and I will have to be patient and not interfere.

[00:36:50] I'm glad someone else has brought this up as since this has happened in my family, I've been hearing of similar circumstances in other families. It's more common than I thought. Thank you for the opportunity to share.

[00:37:03] Rhonda, a grateful member of Al-Anon in Saskatchewan.

[00:37:08] Thank you for writing from Canada, Rhonda, and I hadn't thought about what happens when somebody decides to estrange, separate from somebody else, but another person in the relationship doesn't want to, and how does that work? Here's an example.

[00:37:24] Eric: Yeah.

[00:37:25] Spencer: Again, I'm amazed at the boundaries here. Honestly, you didn't say boundary, but I see a boundary that you're putting on your behavior, to, not get bulldozed. Stayed outta the way of the bulldozer. I like that expression. 'cause that happens, doesn't it?

[00:37:42] Eric: Yeah, of course. There's a comic that I circulate around that has a woman lying on the couch at the psychiatrist's office. The doctor's in his chair with his glasses and a piece of paper and a pad, and said, why do I keep letting people walk all over me and on top of her as a blanket is a giant welcome mat.

[00:37:59] Spencer: What have you been doing to support yourself in this current situation?

[00:38:06] Eric: I've been doing a lot of self-care, I guess, is the best put it.

[00:38:09] Spencer: We heard about self care from Amanda, right?

[00:38:12] Eric: Yeah.

[00:38:12] and sticking to my boundaries as much as my heart wants to not do that, my head and my program, tell me to just wait. but not slam the door, which is why my analogy of just putting an extension cord on for a while.

[00:38:30] Little tiny things, small gestures with no expectation. And the stuff from Chat has been incredibly, because there's just so little in our readers. I've relied on the internet, on chat to give me support and information. As my sponsor early on, taught me, I don't think you have enough information. So in this case, just learning that I'm so not alone, 27% of adults reported estrangement. 29% currently estranged from immediate family members. When broken down by relationship, roughly 16% estranged from a parent, 10% from a child, 24% from a sibling.

[00:39:14] It's been difficult because my younger is living with me. She just finished her master's degree, had a couple of jobs, and she's also really feeling this because, it's a feeling and it's difficult. She loves her sister just as I love my daughters, but when she sends something out and gets something harsh and hostile back, she'll send me a screenshot and we'll sit and talk about it. Usually, my suggestion to her is either what happened to me when something like that. I often say I've heard, you know, when being attacked, go lower and slower and drop pauses between your words, if you're gonna even have a talk or a conversation. More often, I respond to her screenshot of something hostile that her sister sent, by saying, let it go. Let it go. What do you want for dinner tonight? It's not ignoring it, it's just not responding to hostility. It's not justifying arguing defending or explaining why I am not responding. Another episode, force versus power. It's giving away my power to respond to something, hostile, crazy, accusatory. It's just not helpful.

[00:40:39] There's lots of other research, smaller academic samples, university students, community surveys have found even higher lifetime reports of estrangement 30 to 40% or more.

[00:40:50] Spencer: Really?

[00:40:51] Eric: In the UK, charities and surveys have estimated one in five families experienced significant estrangement.

[00:40:58] Spencer: So you're not alone,

[00:41:00] Eric: that's for sure.

[00:41:01] Spencer: I think I've heard from you that your Al-Anon community, your Al-Anon meetings, is a place where people will talk openly about this? Because I'm feeling like it's not something that's gonna come up in conversation with the guys while you're watching football or whatever it is you do with them, or in your apres ski chat.

[00:41:26] I think part of that might be that there's a certain feeling of shame in admitting that either somebody has estranged themselves from you or you've estranged yourself from somebody. Just as we find found, certainly feeling shameful about loving an alcoholic. That gets in the way of healing.

[00:41:48] Eric: Yeah.

[00:41:49] Spencer: I assume this is one of the reasons, it sounds like you're going to a lot of meetings these days.

[00:41:54] Eric: It's no coincidence that I'm starting to hear the word almost two or three meetings a week, the word estrangement comes up and it's not because it's in a reading. 'cause it isn't. There's a version of, I have stopped talking to my mom since I was 10 years old, or I haven't connected with my child for five years. That's estrangement.

[00:42:14] There's books. I just finished the book by Anthony Hopkins, We Did Okay Kid. His story is one of incredible alcoholism.

[00:42:21] His disease put him on his deathbed and he knows the time of day. He quotes in the book, chapter 15, it was 1107 on December 28th, 1107 pm where he heard a voice, said, do you wanna live or do you wanna die? And he said, I wanna live. He never, ever from that moment had a compulsion to pick up another drink. And this guy was a hardcore alcoholic. His doctor said, you have the liver of a 70-year-old. He was 35.

[00:42:51] Anthony Hopkins' daughter hasn't spoken to him since he gave up drinking in 1975.

[00:42:57] I guess what I've been working on is, yes, going to more meetings and yes, bringing it up in meetings even though it's not in our literature and bringing it up to program friends. And it's almost universal in program that someone in the family is estranged from someone.

[00:43:16] Spencer: I'm just thinking about the literature and that, so much of the literature, I think rightly so, focuses on recovery rather than on the painful situation. But,

[00:43:30] Eric: Right.

[00:43:31] Spencer: If I look and I have an electronic copy of the book Opening our Hearts, Transforming our Losses, which is the Al-Anon book about grief and loss. If I search for separate or separation, it shows up multiple times in the book. Estrangement shows up once in this book. This person says, I've experienced many and varied losses in my life, including the estrangement of my teenage son. So one mention in that book of estrangement. When I look in the indexes of the daily readers, most of the words in there are positive. You know, I used to tell people, oh, this is so great. You can go look in the index and look up the thing that you're struggling with and find readings about it.

[00:44:15] And for some things that's true. You can look up fear, there's a bunch of readings on fear. But if you look up separation, I looked in Hope for Today. There's no mention of separation in the index. I don't know, this feels like a gap in our literature.

[00:44:29] I understand wanting to provide solutions, but we also should have an opportunity for people to connect with the problems that they're having somehow. I don't know, just my thought, random, off the top of my head.

[00:44:45] Eric: Where someone suggested, but I didn't have time to do it, is to search in the publications that are monthly, such as The Forum. There might be more in that than is in these older books.

[00:44:56] Before we move on, I want to go to some of the solutions that you mentioned. You know, you can't really search for a solution if you can't really name or identify the problem, right? So That's what you were just mentioning. Perhaps the next book, maybe we'll have a whole chapter on it, who knows? But here's what the WOPR said. Start with clarity before contact. Meaning before reaching out, it helps you get clear on what you're hoping for. What can you and can't tolerate going forward? What you're willing to own, even if the other person never does. And then begin with low pressure contact. If there's been a long and painful rupture, start with indirect or brief contact, a letter, email, short message, which I was saying to you is what I've been doing, with no expectation of getting a response. It's, okay. I wish you health and happiness today on Thanksgiving, you're in my thoughts and prayers. That's enough.

[00:45:47] Avoid emotionally loaded dates of family gathering. Well, there's been about six of those.

[00:45:52] Keep early communication, simple and bounded. Example, curious, respectful, not defensive. Lead with acknowledgement, not argument.

[00:46:03] Research shows that repair attempts fail most often when people defend their version of events, demand apologies first, re-litigate the past immediately. Instead, try acknowledging the impact, even if intent differs.

[00:46:18] Name regret, without assigning blame, validating the other person's experience without erasing your own, you don't have to agree to show understanding. I mean, powerful. Really small but powerful. Focus on the present. Okay? Keep your head, where your feet are.

[00:46:34] Successful repairs usually emphasize how do you want to interact in.

[00:46:39] Boundaries that protect both sides. Small testable changes. How often you talk, what topics are off limits. You know, my email boundary was very helpful. People tend to not email you the same caustic, aggressive, messages to an email as they do to texting. I've found it over and over when I set that boundary, no calls, no texts, but you can email me. Everything goes quiet for a while 'cause they're so easy to pass on. You can forward that to anybody. The police, your therapist, anybody.

[00:47:11] Move slowly, expect uneven progress. Repair is rarely linear. This is really good stuff. And this is kind of what I put into place.

[00:47:23] Use boundaries as support, not punishment. Consider a neutral third party, a therapist, other Al-Anon men. Accept that a partial repair is still repaired. Holiday check-ins. Mutual respect without closeness. Civil but limited contact. Know when repair may not be safe. If someone's using, really that's not the time to be tried to reach out.

[00:47:48] Ongoing abuse or coercion. Repeated boundary violations. For a while after this, she was sending very hostile and it crossed my mind to report this as harassment. And harassment on an order of protection is jail. That's, you go to jail. That is one of the big no-nos. It's like having a firearm. It's right up there with the ones that are crossed off. You cannot harass the victim. In this case, the victim is my younger daughter and she was being harassed. I left it up to her. Do you want me to say something about these? Do you want to say something to the victim's advocate of the court about these messages you're getting that are disturbing you? And she didn't wanna do it. And I'm thankful she didn't because my higher power stepped in and said this is not gonna help. It's gonna make it worse. It got better because I used our program. I found pieces of our program that helped and other outside sources. Here's an outside source AI. And then it says, help me draft a letter switching from parent to adult role. Lead with responsibility, not explanation. Keep early contact brief. It keeps on coming back to that. Ask what they need, accept the answer.

[00:49:05] Really good

[00:49:07] Expect asymmetry and tolerate it. In adult child repair you may do most of the emotional labor at first. They may remain distant even after you apologize. Gratitude may never come. Repair is not transaction, it's an offering. Wow.

[00:49:25] Spencer: yeah.

[00:49:25] Eric: Amazingly powerful stuff. So that's maybe where I wanna shut up.

[00:49:30] Spencer: I'm gonna read one more contribution. This is from Barb. She writes, hi Spencer and friend. Hi. Hi, friend.

[00:49:39] Eric: Got it.

[00:49:40] Spencer.

[00:49:41] Spencer: I am dealing with the loss of a relationship due to an estranged daughter-in-law. My son seems to have no say in the matter. They have just brought my second grandson into the world, meanwhile have yet to meet the first. Acceptance of today is where I land. I can't change the situation, but I can keep a positive attitude. It's difficult to know I have two human beings that are part of my family that may never meet their grandma. But if the day should come, because I have avoided trying to control, manipulate, and manage, when I get to meet them, I'll be full of gratitude, not resentment.

[00:50:19] And this is all caps. I do not pick up the rope no matter what. I also reach out to her every once in a while with no expectation other than to send love. This is painful, but pain is inevitable and suffering is optional. I choose to believe my higher power is at work trying to teach us all to fully let go and to love, kind regards, Barb W

[00:50:44] There's a lot of wisdom in those last couple of sentences.

[00:50:49] Eric: Yeah.

[00:50:49] Thank you, Barb. I do not pick up the rope no matter what. Yeah, I could be starving and somebody's throwing me a steak. I'm not gonna pick it up, man.

[00:50:59] That's what addicts, alcoholics, the primary weapons create anxiety and provoke loss of temper. And I no longer pick that up. I let it drop. There's a guy that I listen to on Instagram who's an attorney and very successful. He deals with confrontation quite often, as you would imagine. Defense attorney. Lots of very hostile, very confrontational. I get these maybe once a day, and they're very short and he doesn't have a lot of followers. But he says, I imagine the words coming out of the person's mouth, going up into the air, like an air bubble of wording, and then crumbling and falling to the floor. And I then I stare at the floor and look at them. And that gives him that pause to not react. And he goes back with, did you mean for that to come out so hurtful? He's the guy that said lower and slower. Was it your intent to say that to hurt me? One of his favorites is, did you actually mean to say that out loud? Fantastic.

[00:52:06] Spencer: Yeah.

[00:52:07] Eric: Freaking fantastic. Was that meant to be said out loud?

[00:52:12] Spencer: For those of you who may not know what we're talking about when we say don't pick up the rope, I'll refer you to a reading on page 30 of how Al-Anon Works, where it basically says you can't have a tug of war if you don't pick up your end of the rope.

[00:52:28] Eric: The other version that's don't take bait and often alcoholics, addicts, they put bait, they hang a steak when I'm starving. They want me to grab it. And, I've learned that it's a tactic. That they don't even know, they're being so cunning, baffling and powerful that, and we often take bait, and get into an argument that is not ours.

[00:52:47] Spencer: I do wanna say, as I noted at the beginning, we got responses from 14 people. We've read responses from four people. We will get to all of the people who wrote, in another episode. What I'm thinking is to put together a follow-up episode that's basically just your voices. Your letters or your voicemail. Because everybody who wrote has something valuable to share, something that might speak directly to one listener or another.

[00:53:20] I don't wanna say, oh, sorry, too many threw them away. Not happening. We will publish them. But we just don't have time in this episode.

[00:53:30] Eric: I thought maybe before we move to music, I would close with an example of something that I did, with a lot of thought. I wrote a letter to my daughter. It was somewhere around the holidays. I took a lot of time thinking about it, but I guess I'm gonna read it to you now.

[00:53:48] It was December 9th, so it was after Thanksgiving in the midst of the holidays. Hi, I hope you're doing as well as you can right now. I wanted to reach out and share something that came up for me recently. I've been doing some work on forgiveness, both forgiving myself for the ways I may have hurt you over the years and finding forgiveness for you. This isn't about excusing what happened or ignoring the difficulties we've had. It's simply about letting go of some of the pain so I can move forward in a healthier way, and so that in time healing might be possible for both of us.

[00:54:25] I know you've gone through a lot in your life, and I recognize that some of the struggles you face are connected to real hurt and trauma. I don't say that to minimize anything or diagnose you. Only to say that I see the hardship behind some of the conflict. For now, I'm keeping the email only boundary in place because it helps me stay grounded and peaceful, and I hope you can understand that I truly want communication to feel safe and respectful on both sides.

[00:54:54] I wish you peace, stability, and healing.

[00:54:58] When the time is right, I hope we can find a healthier way forward. Take care, Dad.

[00:55:05] Spencer: Wonderful.

Song 1

[00:55:06] Spencer: I asked you to pick some music and you picked this first one you said is just perfect.

[00:55:12] Eric: Oh God, I just was knocked out. Adele. Hello? Adele's Hello is a song about reaching out to reconcile. There's the word. Reconciliation. That should be in our readers with past relationships. That's the solution word. Okay. Reconciliation

[00:55:29] Adele's Hello is a poignant song about reaching out to reconcile with past relationships, lovers, friends, family, and even her younger self, to apologize for hurt and find closure. Reflecting on lost time and growing apart with, quote, the other side, symbolizing adulthood fame or even debt, a stark contrast to the innocence of the past.

[00:55:51] The lyrics convey, regret, and a desire to reconnect. Also the painful realization that things can't go back to how they were acknowledge the quote Million miles end quote difference that now separate them. Amazing.

[00:56:08] It expresses nostalgia or regret, apology, closure, forgiveness. And that's why I read that letter, the email reaching out from the other side. It's the perfect song for this episode.

[00:56:19]

Our Lives in Recovery

[00:56:27] Spencer: In this section of the podcast, we talk about our lives in recovery. How have we experienced recovery recently?

[00:56:35] As I've mentioned, I recently joined a step study group, an AWOL group. We're getting near the end of the questions in the book Paths to Recovery on step one. The first question that we hit the other day, do I take care of others easily, but find it hard to take care of myself? I commented to the group because we do have crosstalk in this group. I said, what an Al-Anonic question. This is like the quintessential Al-Anonic question. Everybody, once they got done laughing, agreed with me and almost everybody answered the question, well, yeah.

[00:57:17] I'm happy to say that in my life, after almost two dozen years of Al-Anon,

[00:57:25] I actually can take care of myself and I don't immediately jump up to take care of other people. For the most part. And then I had to qualify it because I recognized that when I was working, I would so easily pick up somebody else's problem and try to solve it. I recognized this in myself and I tried to not do it, but I didn't always succeed. So I take that as evidence of progress. And now I'm not working. So that particular part of my life. I really have gotten, I think, pretty good at not doing it in my personal life. We have a friend whose life is hard. She has a lot of things that come up, some of them just because her life is hard. I have been really pretty deliberate about how I respond to her requests for support and help.

[00:58:29] When she calls and says, oh, this thing happened, I know not to say, what can I do to help it? I wait for the actual request. And the request might be, can you give me a ride to the store because she has no transportation where she lives. The request might be, can you take me to the bank?

[00:58:50] The request might be, can you lend me 30 bucks till my social security comes in? And every time I pause, consider whether this is something that I can do and that I am willing to do, before responding. That is not what I would've done without a significant amount of Al-Anon recovery under my belt. I would've been, oh yeah, I'll just rearrange my whole life and come help you out. You know? I don't need to do that. I think it makes our relationship healthier, and it certainly makes my life more serene and less complicated. That's what's come up for me recently, about how I'm using these principles, as we say in step 12, in all my affairs. How about you?

[00:59:42] Eric: As I put it out to the universe, I get a lot of help, because it's just something that I'm asking God for help with. I don't pray for anything specifically. My prayer is pretty much, God, help me find guidance. Please send me some guidance. I don't have to explain what I'm looking for. And I've been getting it, the guidance was, to really not do much. Let it play out. Do a little. The research I've done suggested small steps. You know, the movie Contact, where his father to Jodi Foster, kept saying to her small steps, Ellie small steps.

[01:00:19] So I've been doing small steps, little bit of contact outgoing with no expectations, a lot of sharing about it, and hearing a lot of other people that this topic apparently really hits home with. Sometimes I do it in the after meeting, where it's a little more freeform. So that has been a lot of what I've been doing.

[01:00:40] I've been doing at least a meeting, probably sometimes two a day. That front range, I like, it's a large group, maybe, 80 to a hundred every afternoon. It's a speaker meeting. So if typically the meeting starts with a 40 minute share, leaving 20 minutes for shares, short and then the after meeting.

[01:00:59] I've heard some very, very, very powerful things there. I'll share one with you. This one, there's a incredible woman that gave her story, and it was recorded. I don't know if it's gonna be on WSO site, but they recorded her. She came from a horrible situation as a child somewhere, I wanna say like Guatemala, where her father was a rancher. And, she had a memory in her head of the sound of his belt coming off. You know, that whooshing sound. She was abused and she fled, and decided that her life was gonna be perfect. No matter what, she was gonna do everything perfectly.

[01:01:35] She went and put herself through college. She was second in her class, and she was absolutely mortified and disgusted. So she went on to grad school and got her PhD or MBA, I don't know what, I think doctorate because I think she's a medical doctor. While she's talking, she's sitting in this beautiful library of books behind her, just so articulate.

[01:01:58] She said early on when she discovered Al-Anon. When she finally went to grad school, she was first in her class. She said finally, I did it perfectly, and she was saying to her sponsor once, I just have to have all my ducks in a row. The way my life works, I gotta get my ducks in a row, gotta keep 'em in a row. All my ducks gotta be lined up and in a row. And after quite a pause, her sponsor said back to her. Yeah, but maybe some of those aren't your ducks. Maybe those are all not your ducks. They're other people's ducks It might not all be your ducks, so she had to focus on her own behavior and not try to control everyone else's. I thought it was just hysterical. I, it's one of those takeaways that I won't ever forget.

[01:02:42] Spencer: I have definitely been in the place of trying to get somebody else's ducks in my row.

[01:02:47] Eric: Not all yours.

[01:02:48] Spencer: Yes indeed.

Upcoming

[01:02:50] Spencer: Coming up, started a series on the traditions and the next one up is tradition two, For our group purpose, there is, but one authority, a loving God as he may express himself in our group conscience. Our leaders are but trusted servants, they do not govern. Some questions to consider if you'd like to contribute, how do you use this tradition in your family, at work, in your recovery groups?

[01:03:15] Eric, how can people contribute to the podcast with feedback or sharing?

[01:03:22] Eric: You can send us a voice memo or email feedback at the recovery dot 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 estrangement or any of our upcoming topics, including tradition two.

[01:03:50] If you have a topic you'd like us to talk about, let us know.

[01:03:54] If you'd like advanced notice for some of our topics so that you can contribute to the topic. You can sign up for our email list by sending an email to feedback at the recovery dot show. Put email in the subject line to make it easier to spot. Spencer, where can our listeners find out more about the recovery show?

[01:04:12] Spencer: That's our website, the recovery dot show. Other aliases also work to get there. Or you can just search Google for the Recovery Show. Last time I tried it, it was first hit, but you never know. Where we have all the information about the show, which is these days, is mostly the notes for each episode of which there are 450 something, links to the books that we talked about, that we read from, probably some other links from this episode, there was so much going on. Links to other episodes that we referenced. Just lots of links. Okay. Also videos for the music. Also on the website there are links to some other recovery podcasts and websites.

Song 2

[01:04:56] Spencer: Which brings us around to, hey, second song.

[01:05:00] Eric: It's kind of a different version, a less combative version of estrangement, which is the song that I don't know if anyone on the planet doesn't know, Cat's In the Cradle, by Harry Chapin. It's a poignant story about a father too busy with his career to spend time with his son. Only the roles to reverse an old age, leaving the now elderly father with no time for his equally busy adult son. Highlighting themes of lost time, regret, generational cycles, the importance of prioritizing family over work. The title refers to childhood string game, symbolizing the passing of time, the responsibilities from one generation to the next, and missed opportunity for connection. Yeah, I'd say that qualifies as a good song for this.

[01:05:47]

Listener Feedback

[01:05:55] Spencer: Now it's time to hear your voices.

[01:05:59] Alba left a voicemail.

[01:06:02] Alba: Hi. It is Alba that wants to talk to Spencer one more time just to thank him for all the work that he has done for the audience of the recovery show, and also for my life. Recently, I was listening to you and I don't know her name that you did the one about assets and personal defaults. It reminded us of an old show that you had done at the beginning of the show, there was number 61 uncertainty and how to distinguish God's will from our will. So I was just listening to it and I realized that you start this a long time ago.

[01:06:48] I saw that you started the first one in 13 and I just compared, my husband had been on five years of supervision from the medical board. He had been sober, but then in 2013, he just start drinking again and he relapsed and he's still drinking. But you can't believe, just being able to follow your journey and my journey and how both you, even if you have all the responsibility, benefit from doing this show and how much….

[01:07:25] Spencer: Thank you, Alba. I think you must be talking about episode 4 49, which was titled Drop the Rock with Kathy. I guess you talked a little bit past the minute and a half time limit and the last few words were apparently cut off, but thanks for the message and thanks for being a long time listener and contributor to the recovery show.

[01:07:49] Finola writes, hi Spencer and the recovery community. I've been listening to the podcast for over two years. I have meant to connect on many occasions. Just sending something now to connect and send gratitude. This message is based on episode 3 28. Hope Means Possibility. Thank you, Spencer and Eric for your wisdom. Hope is such a powerful word for me. After listening to the podcast. Here are some thoughts.

[01:08:14] For me, expectation is me on my own with my limited views of life. Hope is based on previous experiences when Higher Power brought things I could never dream of into my life.

[01:08:27] Hope helps me wait. Hope is a deep seated belief that life can and does turn around. Hope can help us survive the difficulties. Perhaps hope and faith are more closely connected than hope and expectation.

[01:08:43] Our 12 step program brought hope for me, where previously despair and degeneration dominated.

[01:08:50] Thanks for the show. I listen popcorn style to the episodes and more recently catch up as new ones come out. I really enjoyed the one about workaholism. I hope to share on that sometime in the future. Please know you are appreciated.

[01:09:03] Kind regards, Finola in Ireland.

[01:09:06] Thank you for that sharing about hope, Finola. I'm glad that the message spoke to you, and thanks for your feedback.

[01:09:15] And that's it for today.

Thank you, Eric

[01:09:17] Spencer: Eric, I can't thank you enough for, number one, suggesting the topic, number two, coming here and laying out your own pain and your progress in recovery, on this, topic of estrangement, which clearly really hit a chord with a lot of people. And based on those statistics you quoted, I guess it's not surprising.

[01:09:42] Eric: Yeah. As we say, we hope that you heard something and I shared that speaks to your life today. Keep coming back.

Outro

[01:09:54] 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 are facing today, feel free to contact us so we can talk about it in a future episode. May understanding, love and peace grow in you one day at a time.