Hi there, this is steve pomeroy and thank you for joining me for this podcast. This podcast is going to focus specifically on five ways that my family and friends have supported me in my recovery. A few weeks ago I recorded a podcast about specifically why I struggled to get sober and to stay sober. I am a recovering alcoholic relapse has been a part of my story and my recovery. My journey. A few weeks ago, I talked in some detail about three areas, core areas, core issues that kept me from getting sober and staying sober. They revolved around my fears and my inability to address those fears in a healthy, productive, efficient way. How I choose to experience those fears when they come up in the past. I was afraid of everything from the stigma attached to addiction, my fears where I became overwhelmed with thoughts and feelings that I couldn't stand to. I didn't know how to deal with it. So, I wanted relief, I felt felt very uncomfortable and so I sought relief in the form of alcohol. Over time, my disappointments started to get the better of me in those disappointments. I choose chose to focus on what was bad and what didn't happen and what I didn't get versus choosing to look for the good in those experiences. Therefore, I took things very, very personally over time and as a result of not being able to address my fears in a healthy way in the past, those disappointments adding up accumulating over decades and the shame associated with those fears and disappointments. My inability to understand and set and honor boundaries and all the emotions that came up with the inability to do that in a healthy way. I became dis dis regulated, uncomfortable. I sought relief in alcohol fears, disappointments and shame. So a while back I was fortunate enough to come back to treatment again again. Relapse is a part of my story. I've learned some things along the way that I want to share with you. So over a year ago, I'm lucky enough to come back into treatment and at the end of this podcast I'm gonna share with you a very personal story about how it transpired and how blessed I am today. I come back to treatment over a year ago to try and get sober again. So I decided to say yes to it again. Part of the program is where your family, friends, loved ones participate if they choose to and you have to want them to participate in a program that can be very interactive, very open, very emotional, very intimate and very healing. So before I get into the ways that my family and friends, my inner circle supported me then and support me today as I sit here and record this podcast, I have learned the number one, it's a family condition, it's a family disease. It's a shaming condition and disease. There is a lot of hurt and anger, fear and disappointment shared at some level by all involved and all that is affected that fear like it divided me for so long and kept me from getting sober and staying sober can divide and destroy family and friends. It was dividing and destroying me to the point where I was close to drinking myself to death, per my conversations with the doctors, number three that shame just like the disease, no matter what your social status is, the color of your skin, the country of origin, your country of origin, male, female, it doesn't discriminate. Again, it's shared by all at some level. I chose to realize that I wasn't necessarily in denial of my alcoholism. When I went to treatment multiple times, I knew I had a drinking problem. I didn't need anybody to take me through a test, a quiz or really engage me in a conversation to convince me I had a drinking problem. What I needed to realize. What I chose to realize was those underlying issues root causes that kept me drinking and kept me from staying sober. Again, a lot of shame was at the core of it. And again, we're carrying so much with us. When I came into family week and my family agreed to pursue, my parents agreed to participate again. You know, there's, they had their own perceptions and rightfully so there's a lot about this stuff negative in our society. I have said before, we partly live in a shaming society. So I, I was carrying that with me to begin with. So why would I judge them or fault them? I needed to stop judging myself. Number one. So digressing for a second. You know, it was for me. I had this perception of treatment of your either Hollywood and a rock star or you're a low life. Well, I'm not Hollywood and a rock star and I don't believe I'm a lowlife. But I realized I was dying. Number four, what we together realized in treatment and this wasn't the first time they had participated in family program. The families and friends. Loved ones can heal. It can be a very, very healing process and I will give you my two cents on what it required from me and from my loved ones and the choice that they decided to make, which I'm very grateful for eternally grateful for. I know I am today. So it can be very healing without it. I decided in that family program to lay it all out there to talk about my fears, my disappointments and my shame, shame to me was at the end of the day I'm alone. I'm not enough. I'm a mistake. I'm afraid I'm ashamed And I don't know that was a big part of my acceptance from a person that put pressure on himself to always have a response. An intelligent, thoughtful, clear, articulate response to kind of be, I know it all to say. I don't know. I just know I'm dying and I would rather you be on my team than not. We've had our differences as many families do for it to be healing for all of us. It required vulnerability for me to lay it on the line and talk about how sick I was talk about some of these underlying causes as best as I could at that stage of recovery. That will set the stage for the opportunity to connect and ultimately for emotional intimacy and what it required on their part. And my part was to understand start to understand there is not a cure for this, There is not a procedure and operation, a vaccine, a pill, no pun intended with that one. There's no cure. There is no timetable for a recovery. I decided and realized I did not have that luxury anymore to put a timetable on my recovery and simply would ask that my parents do the same. I do this day by day and ask of them what I'm asking of myself first to not have any expectations. That's a lot. That's a lot to ask of ourselves. For me to ask myself and for me to ask of someone else. So I'm going to talk about that they had some questions that they needed to answer for themselves. They came in and were open enough willing enough to start to listen without passing judgment. That's huge. That's so huge to listen and be open enough and willing enough without passing judgment. So questions that I suspect that came up and we talked about, can they as a family accept the fact the day and I am powerless over this disease. There are no terms to be dictated here. The disease when it has you in its grips dictates the terms to you, the one that is suffering and in pain to me and those that are around and love and care. The disease dictates the terms. It will decide how much and for how long I will suffer and how long I will die. Other questions that they have for themselves that they needed to answer. Do they want to be involved? Do they need to be involved? Are they able to be involved emotionally, physically spiritually. Again, I'm gonna talk in a moment about five specific things that my support group, that's what they call them. My family and friends, my inner circle that they do not the perfection. By the way, there is no perfection, only progress if we choose to look for it does tough love work. Did it work for them? Did it work for their parents and their grandparents? There's nothing tough about love. And again, it can't be conditional to the degree when someone's in the disease, the disease has ownership of everything. That's what I mean. So here are the specific things that they started to do. Then continue to do, not asking for perfection because I'm not asking for it from myself and from my friends and and my other loved ones, my inner circle number one, they decided and it's a choice and it takes courage to listen to realize that they needed to, They asked me son, how can we support you? We do not understand how to support you. People say support them, support him. What does that mean? Fair question. That word gets thrown around a lot. It took courage to ask that question and say, we don't have this figured out. How can we support you at that time? Well, over a year ago I said, just listen what you think, you know about my condition, throw it all out the door, assume as if you know nothing today and over time, if you choose to, you can learn more about this. They have chosen to listen to understand here's where it gets really complicated. I believe this is the challenge for those of you listening in The challenge from my family and friends. And the challenge for me, quite frankly, is when you can listen to identify to identify meaning, relate with someone's underlying issues. Can you identify with the other person's hurt which my parents have chosen to do from time to time, they have chosen to say, Hey, I can remember when I was hurt and when I felt disappointed or when I felt underappreciated or felt devalued, there was times when I felt jane that right there, I promise you and this was the message I was delivering to my parents that is so huge, doesn't it feel great when people can identify with our pain versus going, I don't know what you're talking about or what's wrong with you? What the hell's the matter with you versus Hey, I think I can relate what happened. That's when the real listening gets involved. So what am I saying here? Can you choose as my parents have chosen to be equals in intimacy, The emotional intimacy, not mother and father and I'm their son and like when I was a child and there were ground rules and and chores and stuff like that, it's huge. That takes a lot of courage and I believe it is a true skill. I hope you choose to practice this and it does take courage. The, the next one is boundaries. You have limits, they have limits. I thought Bernie Brown kind of summed it up best and I'm paraphrasing here something to the effect of the most compassionate, empathetic and generous people are the most boundary as I do for myself. I have limits. I need to set limits. I need to honor those limits. They choose to do the same for themselves. Sometimes they're not feeling it, you know, in a conversation with me, that's okay, I'm learning to not take that personally and vice versa. Sometimes it's, I'm tired, it's late, I'm coming home from the gym gotta go, we're going through this together. Remember those boundaries are for you as well. Number three self care, self love, it's so important to give you, put yourself in position to even have access and be able to act on number one and number two listening in boundaries. It requires a lot of us to be, to be in good shape to be able to do that myself included for me to be generous with my time and to help others and to be all in and to have compassion and to identify to have that empathy, you know, that, that you know that we're equals in an intimacy that I was talking about. I gotta be, I gotta have my, my a game, a big game I can get by with. Sometimes I'm learning to have the awareness of, hey, it's time to plug in steve, take care of yourself. They do that. My family and friends take care of themselves for the most part. So they're able to have access to this. Number four, my family and friends along with me, I believe that this is so key to healing, whether it's addiction, another condition disorder. It's so critical to my healing and I see my inner circle practicing this and that is gratitude. It's so healing a few minutes a day will lead to increased happiness. I see my family and friends thinking about all the things and blessings and good that they have in their lives as do I, it's a choice not sitting around thinking about all the things that they don't have and that I don't have, as I explained earlier or touched on earlier, I did that. I wound up suffering more and more and more. I hated myself for it. And I drank more. Number five Love. So here's the story I want to share with you. So, we're looking at last may of early May of 2018. I've been drinking again. I'm I'm dying. I didn't know it. I knew I was sick in a mess. I've already been to the er because I wasn't able to stand up properly, fell down, busted myself up, broke my nose, cut myself was bleeding hemorrhaging, went to the er God looked at, they wouldn't let me leave until I could walk under my own without assistance. I came back home, Stayed sober for one day. I started drinking again. If that isn't a disease, addiction isn't a disease, I'm not sure I'm not dismissing discounting any other terrible diseases that have uh caused a lot of pain and suffering for people and I'm sorry for that. Including this one I'm hurting. I get a text out of the blue from my father says how you doing? It. Took courage for him to check in on me, He could have assumed everything was okay. We talked in treatment last year. He said, I just had this feeling, he decided to act on it. That takes courage. It took courage for me to reply in the text. I'm not well, I could have said, I'm fine. That would have been a big lie and I may not be here today. He could have taken that text and said, oh man, is this more of this recovery stuff? Is he going to say that he's mad at me from he could have let his imagination got the best of him. His fears. He could have said, oh man, I don't know if I want any part of this. He demonstrated more courage. He picked up the phone, he said, what's going on? I said, I'm drinking again and it's not good. He could have judged me. He could have said, are you kidding me? You're drinking again. I don't believe this. What is wrong with you? He got off the phone. He still had the number from the treatment center that I returned to that I was at in 2014. He called them. He acted from a place of love takes a lot of courage to do that. Folks took courage on his part and my part. And it's a big reason why I'm alive today and living an amazing life. Thank you for joining me. Good luck to you with this and God bless you