When You Love Someone in Recovery (S13E57)

Introduction to Caroline Beidler

0:00Hey, it's your friend, Dr. Lee Warren. I am so grateful to be back with you for another episode of the podcast. I've got a special treat for you today. My friend Caroline Beidler is back with us today. Caroline's an author, speaker, well-known writer on Substack. She's an addiction recovery expert who offers friends and family members the gift of being able to understand the recovery lifestyle, a way of life that goes beyond anonymous meetings in church basements and fosters a sense of well-being, healthy coping strategies, discovering new passions, and

0:32nurturing a deep personal faith. Caroline's been on the show a few times before. We have written on each other's Substacks before, and we've been part of a writer's group together in the past. I have a lot of respect for her and the work that she's doing in the recovery community, and she has embraced my work as a helpful tool to the people in the recovery lifestyle. We've just had a good relationship and helping each other and collaborating on a few things, and I'm grateful that Caroline's back today. I want you to remember that I'm proud of you for being here doing this hard work. This is

1:03holy work. It's not easy to change your mind and change your life, and especially if you struggle with some type of addiction or you love somebody who's in recovery, then this episode will be helpful to you. Many of us know someone who's in addiction recovery, but few of us really understand what that means. What does the healing journey actually look like, and how can we best support someone who's going through it? We find ourselves worrying that we'll say or do the wrong thing or that we might feel hopeless or confused when our loved one struggles or continues to struggle with substance use. As somebody who has personal experience living in sustained recovery and now professionally helps

1:39those who are starting their journey, my friend Caroline offers a compassionate guide for understanding addiction and the recovery lifestyle with her brand new book, When You Love Someone in Recovery. It's coming out April 7th. That's tomorrow if you're watching this episode when it's released on Monday, April the 6th. And this is a book I was proud to endorse. It quotes some of my work in it, and it's just a really helpful tool for anybody who loves somebody who's in recovery. Caroline shares personal and honest stories as well as professional insights from her work as an addiction recovery

2:10expert, and she walks you through the four pillars of recovery, hope, wellness, community, and service. And she answers questions such as, what does it mean to be in recovery? How can I support my loved one who's on this journey with their body, mind, and soul? How do I set healthy boundaries and show compassion? What stereotypes or misconceptions do I need to let go of? This book, When You Love Someone in Recovery, is a call to action. It's a call to compassion. It includes reflection exercises, real-life stories from people thriving in recovery, and powerful evidence-based research on the body

2:43and brain. I highly recommend this book if you love somebody who's in recovery or if you're in recovery yourself. I think it'll be very helpful, as all of Caroline's books are. I'm grateful to know her, and I'm proud to help promote her book today. We have some copies to give away, so stick around to the very end if you're interested in Caroline's book. And so without further ado, I invite you to enjoy this conversation with my good friend, Caroline Beidler. Let's get after it.

Caroline's Story

3:13Caroline Beidler, my good friend, welcome back to the show. Thank you, Lee. It's so nice to be here. So nice to be among friends. When is your new book coming out? So, my new book, When You Love Someone in Recovery, A Hopeful Guide to Understanding Addiction, drops April 7th with Nelson Books. April 7th. So that's probably tomorrow. If you're hearing this in real time with my episode, we're launching this the day before Caroline's launch. So we still have a chance to get any pre-order bonuses or any of those things that are available. And the book will be available

3:45tomorrow. We are going to give away three copies of Caroline's book. So stick around to the very end after we let Caroline go. I will tell you how you could win a chance or how you could have a chance to win one of those three free books. So be sure and stick around. Caroline, tell us a little bit of your story, your journey, how you got into recovery, and what it's been like for you since. Yeah, Lee, well, I appreciate that question so much. You know, the short version is I grew up in a really challenging kind of environment with substance use. A lot of what they call adverse childhood

4:16experiences. So divorce and lost a loved one, my grandfather, when I was young. And just all of these things kind of started adding up in my young life that pushed me towards substance use as a way to escape. And so by the time I was 15, I was heavily addicted to drugs and alcohol. And as a young teen girl, what that meant for me was a lot of situations I was very vulnerable in. And so it was this, I kind of in my mind, see it as this snowball that just kept rolling in terms of the substance use

4:47and the trauma and things I would experience. And so shame was like a heavy coat that I wore for a very long time. And the substance use was my attempt at coping with trauma, at coping with what I would later be diagnosed with PTSD, post-traumatic stress disorder. And I think for a lot of years, I was just trying to feel okay. What I know now, thanks to folks like you, is that using substances also so early affected my brain. It affected the way that I was thinking. It affected my development. It affected

5:20my social, emotional skills and ways that I could cope and ways that I saw the world. And so it took a lot and it took a very holy intervention in my life to come to a place of recovery. And, you know, my addiction treatment journey started as a teen, but my recovery didn't kick in until after I accepted Jesus. So faith is a part of my recovery story and connected in a recovery community in my late twenties. And so since then, I've just felt moved and called and propelled to be active in the recovery

5:56community in a number of ways. So I decided to go back to school and really felt called to spend my life on behalf of women like me at one point who were desperate and lost and seeking and just weighed down by shame. And so I've done things like my husband's like, wow, you're by a long. And I'm like, who is that person? I don't know. But God has helped me do a number of different things. I started a recovery home for women in early recovery. I've been director of a statewide recovery organization. I've done a lot of

6:27advocacy. And today I get to do writing and editing and sharing the message publicly about the fact that recovery is possible, but not only possible, it's probable when we have the support that we need. So I'm just, I'm so grateful to be on this journey. And yeah, I just love how the Lord can use our really hard, challenging experiences to bless and comfort and encourage others.

Faith Journey

6:52Oh, that's beautiful. And so unpack that, how you came to faith a little bit, because your first book, Downstairs Church, is such a powerful and just an amazing story. So just unpack that a little bit more for me. Well, thank you for saying that. And that is my heart. I love that first book, too. Maybe someday I get to rewrite that book. That'd be fun, wouldn't it? But, you know, my faith journey was so interesting. I was in my kind of mid-twenties and, you know, didn't grow up in the church, actually was never baptized as a baby. Like we were the kind of family we never did, didn't even do church on the holidays, you know. So it was just something that wasn't a part of my

7:26life. And yet I was always seeking God and I was always yearning for something. It was like I knew that God was there. I just didn't have a name for him. But when I was in my mid-twenties, I met someone in college and he asked me, I knew he went to church and I had started going to church with him and his family a couple of times. And one day he just asked me, you know, do you know Jesus? And it was like, you know, those moments when someone asks you a question and it just, I've had several of those in my life. Very coignant moment. But I realized, you know, I had heard of Jesus. Maybe I

7:59had even read a little bit of the Bible. I had been listening to sermons, but I didn't really know Jesus personally or how a relationship with Jesus and a deep personal faith could transform my life than was actually what I had been seeking all along when I was looking for peace and looking for comfort and looking for a way to cope with what I had experienced. So that kind of was a starting point. And of course, you know, I'd like to say, well, I found sobriety at that point. And I, you know,

8:31everything was great after that moment when I invited Jesus into my life. And when I, you know, really realized that I wanted to know more and I wanted to become a follower and it wasn't that though. And I continue to struggle and I continue to need more. And so that's another reason I'm passionate about that's just talking about faith, but talking about the power of recovery community and that we can actually deepen our faith and discover this opportunity for spiritual formation

9:03that I don't know if it can happen in other spaces. I'm in the recovery space, so I can speak on that. But it is such a unique kind of deep place where we can come to know Jesus more. So that's the short version. There's some things in there. Folks can get my first book if they want to read a little more on that. But yeah, I'll put the link in the show notes because that's a powerful book. And that's actually how we first got to know each other. I had you on my show to talk about that book way back in the day. I was like, what, two or three years ago now. And so, was it three years?

9:34Something like that. I don't know. The older I get, it feels like the time has just kind of fallen into itself. It's relativity. Yeah, that's right. Well, give us, you know, I think a lot of people have, we think about addicts and people that struggle and all those kinds of things. If we don't know any of those people ourselves, we don't think about the fact that a lot of folks find a path

From Addiction to Recovery

9:56back to wholeness. So to tell us the end of your story as it stands now, like you, so you went from suicidal, traumatized, addicted teenager to now. Just tell us kind of a little bit about who you are now and what your life looks like today. Well, as you ask in that question, I mean, I'm already feeling emotional because there is such a, there's such a change. You know, I speak a lot and there's a talk that I do where I show, actually show a picture of myself at that point in my very

10:28early twenties when I was really struggling and then a picture of me today. And then folks can see me on the stage. And one of the things I love about people in recovery is that we are walking testimonies. We are walking testimonies. I heard John Ortberg actually say recently on Instagram, you know, if we want to talk about Miracled, we can do that like upstairs in a church sanctuary. But if you want to see them go downstairs into a recovery space because we are walking testimonies. I mean,

10:58sometimes all it takes is looking at someone's eyes and you can see, I've heard this described so much from family members. It's like a light comes back. And I think when we, and recovery is such a beautiful process. I mean, it includes things like humility and confession and all of these deep, very deep biblical foundations and principles. And when we go through that process, I mean, God just doesn't know. Like our hearts are changed, you know, and talk about your new book, like our minds are renewed and there's this opportunity for growth that, I mean, I tell people today, I would not take back my

11:33past because of where I am today. And now is it always easy? Absolutely not. You know, and we, I still struggle. I see a therapist and there's, I'm still in recovery. Like I have to walk it out every day. And yet, you know, I wouldn't take back my past because God's been able to redeem it so beautifully that I just can't help but talk about it. Like I just, you know, sometimes my husband's like, do you ever get tired of talking? Never. I never get tired of talking about recovery because it's amazing. It's amazing. So today, yeah, I get to, you know, I went from a young girl

12:06who I couldn't even look people in the eyes. I used to wear hooded sweatshirts that came down so I could kind of peer out. I would look down. I couldn't make eye contact with people. I barely left my house at the end of my using to now standing on a stage and speaking, talking to people like you who are just my absolute heroes. You know, I mean, it's, it's so overwhelming sometimes to just sit in that and think about it, but I'm so grateful. You know, I'm just so grateful. And I just want to share that with whoever will listen. Yeah. You have a beautiful family too. You have twins or?

12:40I do. Yes. Henrik and Violet, twin. So in recovery, I was blessed to know with meeting my husband, who's never seen me any other way. This is how he knows me, my kiddos. And part of why I wrote my new book actually is because of the question my son asked. And when he was about three, I was headed out to a recovery meeting at our church. And I said, you know, mommy's going to her meeting. And, and my son said, mommy, what's recovery? And it just led us on this kind of journey together as a family and led me to start really doing a lot of research for this book. How do we

13:11share the recovery journey with our loved ones? You know, how do we talk about it? What do families need to know? And my husband and I have been on a journey together because he had no clue what recovery meant. He thought it was, you know, I was going to a meeting in a church basement wearing a fedora, like hiding myself, you know, don't talk about it. We've got to be anonymous. So it's been a really beautiful experience too, working on this book. And my family has been a huge part of, of seeing why it's important to share this journey with others and really help define what recovery is.

13:43Wow. So your son inspired the new book. Tell us a little bit about when you love someone in recovery,

Supporting Loved Ones in Recovery

13:49like how did you put the book together? And what do you hope that people who aren't in recovery will learn from it? Yeah. Well, you know, this has been, I love writing. I always have. This has been my absolute most favorite project. I've had the opportunity to do a lot of interviews. I've talked to so many family members and affected loved ones. It had to do, I'm looking at my stack of books right here. I got to do a lot of reading and research for it. And then also, like you said, my, my son, my own lived experience, my own family really prompted this journey. And even looking

14:20back to when I really struggled as a teen, you know, back in the, it's going to date me. He's, you know, my parents, they had no clue what to do. They had no idea. They were scared. They were afraid. They were ashamed. They didn't want to talk about it. They didn't know that recovery was actually something that was going to make my life bigger. It was like, it was like a scarlet letter that I wore that everyone wanted to, to hide away. And so I wanted to create a guide for people like my parents at that time. You know, I would have given anything to be able to have a book to share

14:55with my loved ones and say, Hey, this is what it is. This is what I'm doing. This is where I want to get to. So it's really meant to be that guide for family members to not just explain what recovery is, that it's a lot more than just like meetings and church basements, but that it's a way of life and something we can work towards. And not only that, but how can we actually show up and love our people? Even if your loved one's still struggling with addiction, I think there's this fear that we're going to do something that's going to harm them. Did you know three out of four U.S. homes have

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16:30difference in how your water tastes, and you know it's good for you. Go to AquaTrue.com now for 20% off your AquaTrue water purifier using promo code Dr. Lee Warren. And AquaTrue even comes with a 30-day best tasting water guarantee. That's AquaTrue, A-Q-U-A-T-R-U.com. And use the promo code Dr. Lee Warren, D-R-L-E-E-W-A-R-R-E-N for your AquaTrue water purifier. Well, there's a lot of evidence-based research out there, Lee, that shares what we can do to actually

17:02help them. So I wanted to give that to families as really a gift of, you know, that blessing out of my own experience, and then also just doing a lot of research and talking to folks about what's been working and what works from an evidence-based standpoint. Wow. What do you think the three most important things for somebody who loves someone in recovery are? The three most important things that they should know. Yeah, well, I love that question. I think, you know, the three most

17:32important thing, number one, understand that if you have addiction in your family, like if you are impacted, you are not alone. And I don't say that, and we hear that a lot, you know, we're not alone, we're not alone. But really, today, addiction in America and globally impacts almost every single family. So if it's not in your living room, it might be in your workplace, you know, it's in your neighborhood, it's in your church. And so we don't need to feel anymore like my parents did back in the

18:04days that this is something we need to hide and not talk about. Everyone is impacted in some way. And so we can come from a place of understanding, like, we're not alone. And importantly, like, we need to talk about it. I've talked to and connected with a lot of pastors who say this is the number one issue that people are bringing to them behind a closed door. Like, hey, my son, my daughter, someone is struggling with addiction. I think we need to understand that we need to kind of keep talking about it to normalize so that more people can feel like they can talk about it openly. You know, I think

18:38along with understanding that it's something that impacts everyone, and it's okay to talk about realizing that some of the ways that families have been counseled to approach their loved one are frankly wrong. You may have heard of like this concept of tough love, or there's a lot of fear in some family recovery spaces around this idea of enabling. I think it's caused a lot of harm. And I've talked to a lot of especially mothers who've said, you know, my son went to addiction treatment, and I was

19:09told to not pick up the phone, not see him, not let him back into the house until he X, Y, or Z usually got sober, right? But we need to think about supporting our loved ones, not in shunning them out. We need boundaries, certainly. And I talk about boundaries a lot in my book. But we also need to remember we can lead with love. It's okay. And especially as mothers, as parents, we need to do with what we can live with, you know, no matter the result of where our kids are, or where our loved ones end up. And so

19:40I do walk through healthy ways that we can set boundaries in the book, which is super, super important. And I really hammer down on this idea of leading with love and showing up. So there is nothing we can do that will cause our loved one to like go back out and use. I think, and I'm an effective family member too. And there was a lot of times I felt like, well, if I did this, you know, maybe he'd stop or, you know, if I do this, maybe that's causing things to get worse. I mean, when we are struggling with addiction, we can, we'll get in trouble all by ourselves. You know,

20:12I prefer that. But there are things that we can do that can help. Going up and meeting folks' basic needs, you know, showing up and calling, texting, just saying that you love someone can help. So I think there's a couple, you save three, and I'm kind of talking all over that numberly, but there's a lot of ways that I think we need to think about recovery differently. And families, I hope with my book's help, will understand that there are things that they can do. Wow. So for somebody that has a loved one who is in recovery, what's the response when there's a

20:46relapse or when that person goes back into that behavior? What's the best way we can support our loved one in that time? Mm-hmm. I'm so glad you brought that up because what the research currently says, Lee, is between 40 and 60% of people with a substance use disorder or struggling with addiction will relapse at some point. And for substances like nicotine or opioids, that number's even higher, close to like 90%. So relapse or recurrence and use isn't some indication of failure. It actually can

21:17be, you know, unfortunately, a part of the process. And so when families can look at that research and understand that a recurrence and use doesn't mean someone is failing, it just might mean that they need different types of support. Another hat that I wear, can my husband laugh, he's like, how many things are you doing right now? But I work for recovery.com, which is a great place that families can access treatment and support and kind of compare different options, right? But recovery.com has a whole array of providers, whether that's inpatient, and I needed inpatient treatment at points, outpatient,

21:52you know, individual therapy. For many of us in recovery, peer support or recovery coaching can be very helpful. So there's, and I talked through this again in the book, but there's a lot of different ways that we need support. And it doesn't just look like one thing. And I think one thing that a lot of families get wrong, and my family certainly did, is that thinking that addiction is something that can be cured. And it's like, you know, taking an antibiotic, where the doctor prescribes the next type of treatment, you know, take it for 10 days. And then at the end of that treatment, you're cured, and it's

22:25over, and it's done. And that's just not the case with a chronic condition. And so how do we build in that support, but families really understand that it's okay if there's a recurrence of use, as long as there is today, as long as we are waking up, and we have breath, there is opportunity to hope. And so we need to just keep doing that. And then working with our family members when they're ready for other types of support, being ready with those options when they need them. Yeah. If somebody is struggling with addiction in their life, that's listening today, and they haven't gotten the kind of support

23:00they need from the people that they love and who love them, what can they do? What kinds of things actually help the people who love you engage you in a healthier way? Well, you know, I think, and I was just chatting with another friend of mine about this. A lot of times, unfortunately, our biological families also need support. So when substance use is impacting us, a lot of times that is also impacting our families. And so family support may actually not be that helpful. So I think that in those instances, we need to think more broadly. And that's what I love

23:34about the church and about the body of believers. We need to think more broadly about what family is and how we show up. I have a friend of mine who told a story when I was doing interviews for this book. And she said that her small group at church, when her son was in addiction treatment, he was at inpatient treatment. There was another woman in a small group whose daughter at that same time was getting treatment for leukemia, for cancer. And they were about the same age and they were getting treatment, you know, for these two different conditions at the same time, cancer and substance use

24:04disorder. And my friend Shelly said, what was so sad to her was that her friend whose daughter was going through cancer treatment, their family had all the support, prayer chain, meal chains, pastor was shouting them out on Sunday. They had visitors and flowers and all the things. She said, my son was sick too, but I didn't have that type of support. And so she tells this story. And I think it's a really good reminder for us as believers, whether or not we know addictions in our house or if we identify

24:37with recovery or not. This is something that is widely impacting our society and our culture and the church. We need to figure out ways to be that family for people that need us. And so a lot of churches have recovery ministries. We have friends, you know, starting nonprofit organizations to provide support churches and we need to open our doors to people in or seeking recovery that need that help. So I think thinking more broadly about how we define family and how the church can really be a part of

25:08loving people struggling with addiction. I like to say too, and a lot of folks say this, that we're all in recovery from something. So I think when we start to see ourselves as not us versus them or like people with addiction or those people, right, we are all, we are all connected and we are all, we all have our struggles and our hardships and addictions. So yeah. Wow. So you've done a ton of interviews already about this book and it's just going to be coming out when people are hearing this. And as my experience as an author too, there's always one question or one or two things that nobody asks me about that I

25:45wish they would ask me about. So what's something that nobody's talked to you about yet that you wrote in the book that you really want people to know? Yeah. Well, thank you for asking that question. I feel, I love as a fellow author, like I feel like we, we get each other. It's like that, you know? Yeah. Well, one question folks don't ask is one of the sections I wrote on the book is called on grief and I included it and it's kind of an appendix because I felt like if I'm talking about addiction recovery, I cannot do that without acknowledging the experience that a lot of

26:17families have. Unfortunately, tragically still today, which is, and you know, I think the CDC has reported addiction fatalities specifically related to opioid overdose has gone down, which is amazing. It's amazing. But we are still losing like 200 people a day to fentanyl overdose alone. And so I think about those families, I think about specifically those mothers. And so I wanted to include a part and I had a mother actually write an excerpt. She talked about her son and

26:50her experience. And I talk about in that section about, as I was writing the book, a woman that I was very close to and was mentoring here in Eastern Tennessee passed away from an overdose and was literally working on the manuscript and then got the, you know, a message on my phone. And so I think when we talk about these issues, we need to just be welcoming of folks experience. And that includes addiction loss. So how do, how do we support people who have, who have gone through this

27:22process with their loved ones and come to that point that like, we never want to get that call, you know, and you know all too well that experience of loss in the family. And how do we show up for honor and acknowledge those experiences too? Because we have the way in the world is like, there's no time to sugarcoat. There's no time to bright side. There's no time for this toxic kind of positivity thinking. Like we need to acknowledge grief. And we also need to acknowledge like we've

27:52been through this experience or we're going through recovery with our loved ones. Other people need support and different types of support too. So thanks for asking that question. And I, you know, it's, it's a really challenging topic, but one that I think we need to keep talking about too.

Book Goals and Hopes

28:07Right. What do you hope for the book? What was your prime goal for this to accomplish for people? Yeah, well, I was praying one night we, and it kind of struck me because I've been talking about, you know, that addiction is normalized, that it's something that all families deal with and have experience. And if you haven't now, then you likely will know someone. And it struck me that, and God really struck me with this, that, you know, my hope for this book is not that, like, I don't want more people to know about addiction. I want more people to know about recovery.

28:42And I want, you know, if every family's impacted by addiction, I want every family to experience the joy and the hope and the grace that my family's experienced because of my recovery journey and our journey together as a family. And so that is my hope for the book, Lee, that, you know, it's someday people will be like, you know what I know about recovery. I know someone in recovery and just say it very proudly with grace, with humility, but just say it in a way that encourages other families and helps promote this way of life that is so healing and can be,

29:14you know, like my experience can be a way that we just come to a very deep place of faith. And so, yeah, I hope this book helps families and loved ones in real time and just continues to kind of ignite maybe a recovery revival. I don't know. I can just keep praying about that. Beautiful. Well, we're praying for you. I'm greatly honored, Caroline, not only to endorse the book, but to have had early looks at little bits of it as you asked me some questions and I was able to help you a little bit and just a great honor to be your friend and part of the story with you. And

29:48we're praying for you and the impact of your words and you're going to make a difference in a lot of lives here. So God bless you in the work and thanks for your time today. What a great talk. I'm so grateful for the time that we have with Caroline today. If you would like to receive one of the three free copies of Caroline's book, send us an email to contact at drleewarren.com. Contact at drleewarren.com. Make sure you give us your name, your mailing address, and your zip code. And remember, these books have to be sent to regular street addresses. They cannot be sent to

30:19PO boxes and it has to be a United States address. So it's the only two criteria. These books are coming from the publisher at their expense and we're grateful for that support. So please send your name, your mailing address, no PO boxes, and your zip code. If you want to be considered to win one of the three free copies of Caroline Beidler's new book, When You Love Someone in Recovery, please check out her website and her new book. We'll put the links in the show note. And don't forget, friend, you can't change your life until you change your mind. And if you love someone in recovery, this book will help you change your mind about how you can support and help them. Don't forget to check out my new book,

30:53The Life-Changing Art of Self-Brain Surgery. It's available everywhere books are sold and you can always get it and all of our other resources at drleewarren.com. Please be sure to share the podcast with someone if you feel like it would help them. God bless you, my friend. And don't forget, the good news is you can start today.