welcome

to the Red Roof recovery show

my name is

Tanya MacIntyre and I am joined by my

beautiful husband of 32 years

together very soon in 2023

I like to

call him sir Lancelot because he’s

definitely been my knight in shining

armor in more ways than one!

Lance

brings a family perspective to our

business of addiction recovery programs

to soften the path of recovery from

addictions.

Lance lived with me through

my drug and alcohol addictions for most

of our marriage he is now enjoying living with

me during five consecutive years of freedom

from my addictions.

But with that of course comes other challenges because

now he’s living with me in my recovery

from addictions which is a whole new

ball game!

I understand

and I love the fact that Lance brings a

family perspective to our conversations

so when we do get together we are having

some insightful conversations from both

sides of this spectrum – this complex

condition of addiction, which is

definitely a global epidemic, to say the

very least.

Lance, thanks for being here

sweetheart.

you’re welcome.

I don’t

think I would have continued doing these

podcasts if you hadn’t joined me  – it’s

one of the most anxiety

creating things for me, so I

procrastinate around it a lot. So, I’m

grateful that you have not only joined

me but you are also my accountability partner

to getter done!!!

You’ve done TV and everything like that and

radio and other stuff when you were in

the midst of your addiction

and part of

the coming out the addiction is

opening yourself up to the feelings that

you suppressed … anxiety

and performance anxiety – approval addiction

yeah the fear of being

judged by other people and yes so I can

understand why

you have trepidations not unlike what

most people experience.

I talk to a lot

of people who actually express

admiration for seeing me face my fear and

anxiety, and that means a lot to

me, because I try to

practice what I preach because I’m

always telling people to feel the fear and

do it anyway … walk into that fear – walk

through it.

That takes a lot of

peer support so

thank you sweetheart.

And that’s called

courage.

Well, it’s certainly taken a lot of

courage for people to step up to the

plate to say I want to make a change

that’s probably the most difficult thing

to do in life is say I’m ready to

to make the change.

I went into a

rehab in 2009 when we were living in

Spain – 30 days in a rehab, based on a

12-step model of recovery

which, without question, saved my life.

I don’t think I’d be alive doing this

today if I hadn’t made that step. however

I obviously wasn’t ready because

then I relapsed every year for the next

eight years while attending 12-step

meetings!

That’s not the fault of the

program – that is my inability to accept

this complex condition that I’m living

with and it took me eight years of

experience relapsing (with learning

opportunities) for me to finally reach a

point where I was ready and you know

that is different for different people

and even though with our intake form

– all the questions that we put people

through when they’re applying for our

one week residential program (because I

still believe that recovery doesn’t take

a long time … it takes a persistent

willingness to exert consistent efforts

to help yourself).

Sometimes we’re just not ready

and getting ready is an

individual path that’s going to be

different for everyone so today we’re

talking about codependence again because

we only scratched the surface of that

huge topic.

We’ve been together for 32 years and you

know I think every relationship has an

element of codependence for sure.

The longer that we’ve been together I’m

sure those dynamics have evolved for

good or bad.

I guess if the relationship

is still working in a healthy way, is it

a bad thing?

We all have strengths and weaknesses

and if you can find someone that

compliments you  – he has the strengths

where your weaknesses are –

that’s fantastic!

And is that codependence? for sure

because you’re giving up some autonomy

over what you do to the other person

because they’re just better at it.

We do that in life

anyway you know – whether it’s a job or

relationships with other people.

If you’re on a sports team you know

at five foot seven five for eight would

you be able to play a point guard in a

basketball team but you wouldn’t expect

to be the point

guard because the point guards are

always a lot taller.

We all give up

responsibility

for people who can do things better in a

relationship.

In a good relationship we do that and we

don’t resent the fact.

There’s the key–  if there’s some

resentment growing, you’re going in

the wrong direction for sure.

so today I want to talk about the

blame and shame game that a lot of

people get into.

One of the things that

is quite common is that the person in

the addiction blames their partner for

situations that forced them into taking a

drink or drug.

you know they might

say they’re behaviour stresses them out

or they push them in a certain situation or

they blame them for

basically their addiction

which is again relinquishing

your responsibility and

putting it on the other person.

From a support person there’s a tendency to

blame and shame the other person, and then we

try and shame the person with

addiction into giving up because it

doesn’t fit with our view of you.

Maybe we don’t have enough money and then we

blame the other person for their

addiction for using our money!

People walking away from friendships

because of what you’re doing and we put

the emphasis on the person with the

addiction and blame them for everything

that’s happening in our life which again

is relinquishing our responsibility to

the other person.

So, what tools do you think we can use to

stop the blaming and shaming?

When we went to Spain, I had my

expectations set for something that

didn’t materialize so I used that as a

springboard to go deeper into my

addiction so that was my excuse

definitely with a lot of blaming

going on there for me because I go through that other

Rabbit Hole of uh this wouldn’t have

happened if you hadn’t

brought us there!

 In reality, it was an opportunity to become

semi-retired in a beautiful climate we

we had dreamed of um retiring in a in a

tropical uh climate because I love to be

warm

so you know we went with all the

right expectations and of course uh

yours came to fruition and mine did not

because of bureaucracy and a multitude

of other things.

So I’ll use that as my excuse to

a spiral downwards and

that was actually a good thing I think.

If that

hadn’t happened I wouldn’t have reached

what we refer to and I really dislike

the term Rock Bottom because uh you know

the Rock Bottom was actually a

springboard for me to make a change even

if it was just scratching the surface.

It propelled me into

making some kind of a change you know

reaching out for help to say I need

some help – I can’t do this alone and I

don’t even remember!

I don’t know if you remember the story about how I I

woke up in the morning –  after staggering to bed

again –  literally climbing upstairs on all

fours to get to bed and pass out (I

never did sleep, I just passed out).

And in the morning when I woke up with a

hangover as I always did and I was

having my first drink of the day uh

vodka and orange juice because I would

appease Myself by with the orange juice

justifying that it was okay to have it

in the morning

um

and I got this call from Anthony he said

uh hi Tanya it’s Anthony from Serenity

House how can I help and I I had no idea

who he was and apparently I had sent him

an email the night before

reaching out to Serenity House just

outside of Seville in Spain to go check into a 30-day rehab.

So that’s how

my journey began in 2009 and it’s still

unfolding and evolving you know I said

I’m going to be celebrating five

consecutive years of freedom from

addictions but it took me eight

years of relapsing every year to get

there.

so it is difficult.

with all you’ve learned

and as you say you blame the

situation you blame me because it was you know I did plant the

idea and I did push the idea of you know

going to Spain because my brother was

there and my family is in Europe and

you know

you followed so I can understand the

blame and

by their stuff but you use that to

propel your addiction?

Exactly that was

my springboard right so my rock bottom

was a springboard as I think most people

who you talk to who have hit that Rock

Bottom say the same thing – it was

it was a springboard for me to make the

change even if it didn’t happen right

away. It was the beginning of a change.

So, what brought you to the point where

you recognized that you were blaming me

for something

that was actually your responsibility

the way you felt and everything like

that you could have said no I don’t want

to go to Spain.

What tools did you

use to change your mindset?

I think a big

question to answer for yourself is “what do

I want? what am I doing about it? and how

do I feel about what I’m doing about it?

These are the three questions through

cognitive therapy that I was encouraged

to ask. And when I started to sit and

contemplate my feelings and

my own sabotage in my life,

I realized that I needed to make a decision – am I

going to do the work to make the change.

and you know that’s again an involvement

I think that continues to

motivate me to remain free from

addiction.

I keep doing the work. I have a persistent willingness

to make that consistent effort to help

myself and it’s a daily effort from the

moment my eyes open the Journey Begins

again for another day.

I still go to 12-step meetings – I love the peer support

and the snappy slogans … one day at

a time, take what you need and leave the

rest. you don’t have to buy into the

powerlessness and higher power and God.

You just make it what you need

it to be if you can find the right group.

I’m lucky to live in a little town in Ontario

now and I’ve found the right group it’s

great peer support and it works for me

so find what works for you.

I always say ‘the key’… it’s one of my favorite acronyms –

keep educating yourself … keep looking for

something that you’re going to be able

to sustain – something you’re going to do

every day to maintain your freedom from

harmful substances and behaviors.

One of the core tools that I use

to start this process well there are so

many sweetheart as you know…

I call it the hammer in my toolbox – it’s a playlist

that I’ve put together from my time

facilitating meetings with SMART

self-management and Recovery training.

Using cognitive therapies,

they’ve put together some short very

helpful videos around unconditional

acceptance of self, others, and life.

You can find the playlist on our

YouTube channel – Just look for

Red Roof recovery on youtube, and look for that

playlist of unconditional acceptance.

I watch those short videos on a regular

basis and it helps me to appreciate that

unconditional acceptance of myself,

of others, and of life is key for me to

remain free from addictions.

I think also it helps

people who are living or dealing with people

with addiction to do the same thing – to

look at themselves and realize that

we have a choice,

we can accept that we learn to

accept it change it or leave it.

If you

can’t accept it, change it. If you can’t

change it, leave it.

I think the Buddha said

that 2500 years ago well I think it’s as

true today as it was then!

thanks for being here sweetheart and

thank you for hanging out with us for a

few minutes of your day.

 remember there

is great power in knowing that the only

thing we can control in life is

ourselves.

and let’s remember to be

gentle with ourselves… have a nice healthy

discipline but still be gentle with

ourselves – our inner child can always use

a little bit more love!

May the force be

with you and – remember  –

YOU are the force

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