Coaching Episode: Dealing With Anger and Disappointment When You Learn Your Child Is Misusing Drugs and Alcohol, with Rose

Rose: You know, of course we never want you to do drugs forever for the rest of your life. Why do he not understand that? But now I see it as like, I can’t get through one day and you want me to say I’m never gonna use for my whole life. Like, how is that reasonable? Like, and so, but I couldn’t see that ’cause doing it was completely unreasonable in our eyes. Brenda: You are listening to HopeStream. If you’re parenting a young person who misuses substances. Is in a treatment program or finding their way to recovery, you’re in the right place.

[00:01:00] This is your private space to learn from experts and gain encouragement and support from me. Brenda Zane, your host and fellow mom to a child who struggled. This podcast is just one of the resources we offer for parents. So after the episode, head over to our website at Hopestreamcommunity.org. I’m so glad you’re here. Take a deep breath. Exhale and know that you have found your people. And now let’s get into today’s show. Hey, it is coaching episode week. Every time I do one of these coaching sessions, I’m reminded of the incredibly complex dynamics that you are juggling when you have a child who’s struggling between substances, mental health school, other family members and siblings. The covid, aftershocks, I mean, it is significant. Today you’ll hear from a mom who’s pretty new to the realization that her son has been misusing substances and even to a greater

[00:02:00] degree than she and her husband had originally believed. This is a really important thing to mention because I know personally and what I’ve been told by program owners, therapists is that our kids underreport the extent of their use and what they’re using by at least 60%. So for Rose, she thought her son was using THC concentrates, which he was only to find out. That was just one of many substances that he was experimenting with. Basically anything he could get his hands on. We talked about Rose’s intense need for control and how her lack of self-care is impacting her physically and how it is also impacting her family. I so appreciate the willingness of our HopeStream community members. To share their experiences with you through these episodes, and I know you wanna dive in. So let’s listen into this recent coaching episode with Rose.

[00:03:00] Welcome, rose. I’m so happy that you’ve decided to join me for a coaching session that we are recording for the podcast. So helpful for people. I know you said you just found the coaching episodes and. I think what I love about them is obviously they’re very real. It’s not like a PhD trying to explain something that they’ve never experienced. Like your, your feet are in the fire right now. So, um, I appreciate you being willing to be here and hope we can work through some stuff and be helpful for you today. Thank you. I’m a little nervous. I know, I know. And that’s totally fine. Um, I think what’s helpful would be to give me a little bit of context for what’s going on in your family right now to

[00:04:00] whatever degree you’re comfortable with that. And then we’ll talk a little bit about some. Things that you might wanna work on for yourself or for your family, but you can just give us, you know, whatever feels right, the Cliff Notes version of what’s going on, and then we’ll go from there. Does that sound good? Rose: Yep, that sounds good. I have three children. I have a sixteen-year-old, a fourteen-year-old, and a just-turned-seven-year-old from a lot of the episodes I hear and the podcast and the parent groups, I guess we’re fairly newbies here. Because we discovered my son’s problem with substances at the end of January of this year. We think he’s been using for a little over a year, but we’re still not sure exactly when all that started. But in the short six months, or the longest six months of my life, however you wanna look at it, he used a lot, um, pretty much everything

[00:05:00] he could find. And we took him to inpatient. Rehab center, um, which is where he’s at right now. He used everything he could find together, mixing them, and, and so, so we were in a, pretty much in a crisis mode as we were waiting for a spot to open up the last couple weeks before he went in. So he has been in treatment, his first rehab, um, for six weeks. From the time we found out about the use to the time he went into inpatient, we had him in a special outpatient place, which, you know, Dr. West Robin, Brenda: yes. Dr. Rose: West. Yes. So our son was seeing him as well as another therapist and a mentor. That’s kind of how they do that. So he had, was having two to three sessions a week as outpatient. Um. And at first he was doing great. He, I think he went a month or two without using, and then

[00:06:00] things spiraled out of control. Brenda: Wow. So not only is that a lot, it’s a lot. In a condensed amount of time. Yes. Rose: A lot. Yeah. We went from, maybe he, he’s using some marijuana, but when we found him and his friend’s high, it was not on marijuana to. He is drug of choice is LSD to Yes. I’ve tried meth and coke and crack and we don’t even know, like my husband and I are not in this world of addiction, so, um, well, we are now, but we weren’t before, so, so we have no, no, no idea what was going on at all like. Brenda: None. Isn’t it crazy where you end up learning that there’s a whole world that you didn’t know about this existing right under your feet

[00:07:00] and it feels, I don’t know about you, I don’t wanna put words in your mouth, but I was a little bit the same where it was, maybe mine was a little bit more of a gradual burn, but you realize, oh, wait a minute. This is the kind of stuff you see in movies, but it’s happening in my house. How, how did you start to process Rose: this? Oh my gosh. So, yeah, so the first week was just utter devastation and sorrow and, uh, shock. But being who I am, uh, we found him about two in the morning, um, one night. So by six in the morning, um, after. We had to establish that we didn’t need to take him to the hospital. Um, and got him into bed. I was researching what to do. Mom is on it. So

[00:08:00] for me, anger took a couple weeks to settle in. Um, for my husband, it was like instantaneous for me. It was not, um, it took a few weeks. I just remember after like 10 days or something, he was talking to me and I said, don’t, don’t talk to me. I am too angry to talk to you right now. And I’ve never said that to him, but I was like, I am I all I am, I am angry and I have your little sister and your younger brother deal with, so I just knew yelling wasn’t gonna fix anything right then. So, and I knew it was my own issue at that moment. So I was like, but I remember that this, yeah. Brenda: Isn’t it interesting? I’d like to dig into that just a little bit when we find out. ’cause I think this will be helpful for others is when we find out, because I was the same. Very angry, very disappointed. Like, oh, like really? And I think some of that comes

[00:09:00] from just a lack of understanding and education, right? Because here our child is suffering from a really difficult. Medical problem and we meet it with anger. I just think that’s so interesting. And I’m not saying that like it anything against you, but I think it’s such a common response. So tell me a little bit about that. Rose: Um, absolutely and I have grown a lot in these past few months of knowledge about this and because at first. We kind of did everything wrong or, or all that we need to do, but like now that I’ve read Beyond Addiction and listened to multiple Pike and I’ve read like, whatever, 10 other books, yeah, I could see that. You know, typically parents may act like this and, and you know, no, you’re, you know, of course we never want you to do drugs forever for the rest of your life.

[00:10:00] Why do he not understand that? Right. But now I see it as like, I can’t get through one day. And you want me to say I’m never gonna use for my whole life. Like how is that reasonable? Right. And so, but I couldn’t see that reasonable at all. ’cause doing it was completely unreasonable. Sure. Um, in our eyes. So, and one of my children suffers from a chronic medical condition that took us a year or so to diagnose. That was not the reaction I had right. To him. I, of course, was not angry, right? The, the, the kid was sick. You could see the medical condition, right? Yes. Um, all we saw with my older son was, you are choosing to live your life this way and very different. So, very different reaction. I, I’ve heard a lot of it’s a choice or not a choice, and I, I guess I fall somewhere to that. I feel like in the

[00:11:00] beginning it’s a choice. Like they, he, my son chose to smoke pot or my son chose to take LSD, but I quickly saw it become not really a, a choice. It was his choice to not have pain or his choice to be happy or his, like the on the only thing that gave him that, but that took. Months to fee from my Brenda: end. Well, I think that’s just so common because really from a cultural standpoint, we’ve been conditioned to believe that it’s a choice and you know, this is bad behavior and this is like kind of a moral failing. And so it does take a little bit of time to educate ourselves and that’s why we believe so much in education, um, at Hopestream community. Just to try and speed up that understanding a little bit

[00:12:00] that your son probably had some, I don’t know if you’ve dug in with him about kind of why he did choose substances as a way to either be happier or be less uncomfortable, or whatever his reasons were. But what I do know is our kids are so brilliant and they usually find the thing that works the best, the fastest. And that is very often substances. Yes. Right. So he’s probably a very smart young man, and I am sure he was like, oh, this works really well and it works really fast. And at first, obviously they don’t go into it saying, oh, I wanna become addicted to this substance, or this could potentially be. Uh, something that could get out of control, because obviously there’s, you know, he’s 16, he’s invincible at 16. Right. Rose: So. Right. Brenda: Absolutely.

[00:13:00] Does it kind of make sense to you now that he, that he ended up making some of the choices that he did, or where are you on that spectrum? I think Rose: that even though it was shocking, if I look back, I think I’d always worried that he would end up somewhere here. Um, he has been an all or nothing kind of person his whole life. Also, if it comes easy for him, he does it. If it’s hard, he doesn’t. Brilliant. We were trying to see if he had ADHD or something like that. He was younger, very young, like six. So we did the psycho-educational testing. They weren’t a hundred percent sure that he had ADHD. They were like, maybe he does. We’re not sure yet. He’s a little young. I. But, um, they did the IQ testing and that was very, very high. And so he, but he couldn’t read and so he couldn’t

[00:14:00] read, but he was really smart, so he was always getting in trouble and labeled as a troubled child, and that’s never good. So we moved schools and, but it, we, it took us a while to, you know, schools, you know, all those kinds of things we’re really struggling because he has at the moment, and for a while. Zero. And I said zero internal motivation to do anything like, except to have fun. And, and, and he is in rehab right now and he is checking all the boxes on that they want him to do. But I see no shift in his, the way he looks at it like. I wanna come home, I’m going to do all of this. I’m not gonna do drugs. But his reasons are So you don’t send me back to rehab. Right. You know, or, or so you don’t? Or So you know, I can have my last year of high

[00:15:00] school with my friends not seeing, and I know he has a sixteen-year-old brain, and I know he has a brain that’s been on substances for at least a year. And so that’s probably not even a sixteen-year-old brain, but Right. So, so six weeks of rehab probably isn’t really gonna counter a lot of that yet, but it’s so hard to hear, to talk to him and, and, and not seem, see much self-reflection or take responsibility for anything that he’s done or. Accepting, or, you know, and just, I just want a little bit of movement forward because he’s gonna come back, Brenda: right? You are highly intelligent, highly educated. You understand that he, it’s going to need

[00:16:00] some intrinsic motivation to keep this gig going, this sober gig, going so, and when you don’t see that, it can be very worrisome. Thinking about him coming home. Because he won’t have all of the scaffolding that he’s got right now while he’s in treatment. And it can be overwhelming to think about setting that up, um, which is what you’ll need to do to some extent, if he’s gonna be coming home straight from the program that he’s in. You’re right, he, you know, he’s only been substance-free for six weeks. Rose: Not even, well, he actually, he relapsed in rehab. So half that three weeks? Brenda: Yeah. Yeah. So, so not a lot. Not a lot. And really, even if, even if he had been completely abstinent for six weeks, that is not even enough time. They really say it takes about six months for the brain. To reset.

[00:17:00] Right. Once it’s, and I noticed this in my son when he, after he is been in wilderness and residential for at the, about the six month mark, I finally started seeing the lights to come back online, and so that is why really, you know, from a professional standpoint, at least 90 days is recommended. Right, right. Ideally, it’s two years, right? That they’re in a structured environment where they don’t have. To make the daily decision around friends, around, you know, their use and all of that. So it’s a long game, right. Is I guess what I’m saying. And so what feels to you, like when you think about our, our work today and what you’re learning in the stream and in our community, what feels like sort of the most. Urgent or relevant thing to work on for yourself in the

[00:18:00] next when is, when? When will he be coming home? We don’t, we don’t Rose: have a discharge yet. And he’s not coming home. Like we’re, we’re sending him somewhere else. It’s just, we don’t know where that is. But so, so it’s funny because I had an idea last week when I made this, um, session and it changed after speaking with. My son on Tuesday and going to these different parent groups that I go to. I think what I’m struggling with this week the most is like hope. Yeah. Because I just keep hearing about kids relapsing after three years or seven years or three weeks or, and. I know there’s a difference in relapsing. Like, I went out with friends, I, I drank, or

[00:19:00] I did something. It wasn’t the best decision, mom, you know, but I did it and let’s move forward. I’m like, okay, all we can do is move forward. But I know that he wouldn’t, he’s found anywhere near ready for that. And so my worry is relapsing is, Hey, I went out and I. I mixed clonazepam with LSP and alcohol and I got hit by a car and I died Brenda: because this is a long game. And you know, if you were to look at a yardstick, you’re, you’re at the like one centimeter mark. Of that yardstick, which I don’t, I don’t tell you that to discourage you because Rose: I can’t, I can’t handle the yard. I know, Brenda: I know, I know. But, but what it is hope. I’m hoping that that gives you some hope because you have so much time. As long as you’re on this and you’re aware it, it is gonna be bumpy. I, I think it would be

[00:20:00] a terrible disservice to you to say, oh, don’t worry. He’s gonna go from here to a residential program. He’s gonna be fine. Right. I think that would just be a huge disservice because with adolescents in particular, that’s just usually not the pattern. It can be the pattern. And trust me, I’ve talked to, I know these people, their kids come out and they’re like, whoa, I really found this new way of life that I wanna. You know, dig into the good news is that you caught it early and that you are really aware and, and really taking the time to educate yourself about the realities about what he needs. And I feel like that’s all really good news. I know that you probably don’t feel like there’s a lot of good news right now, but there is that, that is all really good news and. When it comes to hope, I think we have to see evidence sometimes to have hope. Yeah. And there

[00:21:00] is a lot of evidence that, that people really do recover. And it can look if, you know, it looks different for everybody. But the beautiful thing is that for him, this is part of his story and he’s going to. Acquire so much knowledge and skills and compassion and empathy along this journey of his that he wouldn’t otherwise just like you are. You know? I mean, think two years ago, would you have had the same level of compassion for people who struggled with addiction? Probably not. No. Because it just wasn’t part of your world. Right? So. So there can be really positive things, and that’s kind of where we have to keep the focus because you can get consumed by the fear and the negativity and, and all of that kind of stuff. The idea of

[00:22:00] acceptance that this is where we are, this is what we’re dealing with. We don’t approve of it, we don’t love it, we’re not excited about it, but this is where we are. And I can accept that because that’s the foundation of change is being able to say 100% without any reservation, this is where we are today, because that way you can move forward. Hi, I am taking a quick break to let you know some exciting news. There are now two private online communities for supporting you through this experience with your child or children, the stream community for those who identify as moms and the Woods. For guys who identify as dads, of course, this includes stepparents and anyone who is caring for a young person who

[00:23:00] struggles with substance use and mental health. The stream in the Woods exist completely outside of all social media, so you never have to worry about confidentiality. And they’re also ad-free. So when you’re there, you’ll be able to focus on learning the latest evidence-based approaches to helping people change their relationship with drugs and alcohol in both communities. We have a positive focus without triggering content or conversations, and we help you learn to be an active participant in helping your child move towards healthier choices. You’ll also experience the relief of just being able to be real. Connect with other parents who know fully what you’re going through and have battle-tested mentors alongside. You can check out both the stream and the woods for free before committing, so there’s no risk. Go to HOPESTREAMCOMMUNITY.ORG to get all the details and become a member. Okay, let’s get back to the show.

[00:24:00] Rose: Every day we can keep his little baby teenage brain sober is another win. And so then I’m like, okay, so the next step, once I have the next step, I feel like I’ll be like, okay, I don’t know if I’ll be allocated, but I feel like if I know there’s a place for three months, I can at least breathe for one. And I haven’t. Had that yet, but mostly that’s my fault because I have control issues. Brenda: Well, we all have control issues when it comes to our kids, so don’t feel bad about that. But I, I will say that these experiences come to teach us a lesson and to be able to look at this and say, what could I, what could this make possible for me? And this could make possible for you. A willingness to start to let go of some of

[00:25:00] those outcomes and letting go of the outcome and just being on the journey with him, being alongside him right now. And this is a hard balance because you do have to have some plans in place. So I’m not saying just wing it ’cause that’s, we don’t wanna do that, but having a couple of ideas, right? Like, okay, here’s one, here’s one option, here’s another option. And I, and I will say that sometimes having a couple of options in your back pocket so that he is able to participate in the next step, if you have a couple of options that you, you’re fine with either one. To allow him to make some of those choices can go a huge way in him feeling like he has not lost all of his agency in this process, because that’s how they can end up feeling is like, well, you know, I met the mercy of my mom and dad and their decisions. But for you to let go of the outcome of what’s gonna happen after the next, after the nine month program,

[00:26:00] who knows? Right? Who knows, right? Yeah. I have to say, I have heard over and over for the last four years from every expert that works in this field has said we have to let go of those outcomes and those expectations and be present on the journey to be really tuned in with them what’s going on. Why did this feel like the right solution for whatever you were going through? Because it was a solution for him. And really understanding that and connecting with that will be so much more advantageous to, to all of you than for your brain to be out here, you know, in what’s he gonna do in his senior year. And what about the prom and what about the this and what about college? And none of that matters right now. None of that matters right now. My son graduated from high school and treatment sooner than his friends because he was in a, he was

[00:27:00] in an educational system that did not work for him. And I’m guessing your son sounds a lot like mine. Incredibly smart, incredibly talented. My son did not fit in the school mo mold that I had him in, and so this could be an opportunity to say, huh. Maybe we need a new learning environment and maybe a great learning environment would be one where he can go at his own pace and he can speed up where he can speed up and he can slow down where he needs to slow down and he’s not put in a box that all the kids are supposed to fit in. So there could be some real blessings and this as well for him to actually do life in a way that works for him because. What, what I’m guessing is that something about how life was working for him didn’t feel good and didn’t feel right, and using substances gives him a bit of control over that. He gets to control how he feels,

[00:28:00] control how things, how things are gonna go. And so for you to really start to get curious about that part of it with your longer-term plans out there. But letting go of the rest of it. ’cause it’s gonna happen, how it’s gonna happen. It’s like when you have a birth plan, right? You think you have this amazing birth plan and then that baby’s gonna come however it’s gonna come. So it’s a little similar to that. Let’s say the next 30 to 60 days, how can you start to think about what would be beneficial? Supportive for you in your day-to-Day life. Is there a shift that if I touch base with you in 60 days and I said, Hey, how is XYZ going? What would be a measure that would, that I could look at that would tell me that you are

[00:29:00] feeling or doing better? Rose: It’s really hard because I, I hear what you’re saying. I totally agree with everything you’re saying. I just, I feel like I’m in this cycle right now where I can’t, I can’t. Because he’s a minor, I cannot pull away, I, I, I can’t pull out, I can’t leave it up to other people to figure that part out in 60 days. Ideally, I would, I think it’s, he was in the next place, um, um, and putting an effort in that place, I wouldn’t be. Thinking about the next step for him every day, every moment, every hour. I think I would be like, he’s in a place, they’re, they’re doing their thing. I can now focus on, I. A little bit less of that. And, and I couldn’t, I, I mean, I still have a full-time

[00:30:00] job that I do. I still take, you know, my one kid to their thing and my other kid to their thing. And, and, and I, I’m still doing all of that too, so I’m not curled up in a ball, at least, even if I want to. I’m like, I’m very good at compartmentalizing and like, okay, nobody’s around so I can fall apart a little bit. Um, I just don’t know how I can, I don’t know what. Better for me looks like in the future. I just, I don’t, I don’t know. Is Brenda: there a time in your past that you can think of, and feel free to spend a few minutes to think about it, where you went through something that felt really confusing and really scary and took you offline a little bit and you were able to navigate through that. Rose: Yes. But it all had to do with me

[00:31:00] figuring it out, me controlling the situation. And it took a while. It took years. Brenda: And if you were to go back and give some advice to the rose at that time, with the knowledge that you have now about life and and everything, would you give her any advice before she went through that? Rose: Enjoy life more in the moment. Brenda: And what would that have done for her? Rose: Probably relieved stress. How does Brenda: stress show up badly in your life? Rose: Well, I also have a chronic condition, so it exacerbates it quite a bit, which makes certain tasks, daily tasks, and daily functioning even more challenging. So it’s not helpful, but I have not ever experienced not having it or stress,

[00:32:00] so I don’t know any Brenda: different. Obviously this is a, like on the scale of one to 10 stress, what you’re dealing with right now is like a 20. So if you think about another time in life where you had a stress that was, you know, like four or five, like. It was stressful, but it, you know, it wasn’t anything like this. Is there anything that you’ve done where you felt stressed but you were able to do something so that the physical impact on you and this medical condition that you have was lessened? Yes, Rose: and I found, uh, I found an outlet and I can’t do that outlet anymore. My, my outlet was a, was jiu-jitsu in martial arts, and I did that for a while. Um, and I can’t do it anymore, and I haven’t been able to replace it. Um, the one really good thing about it is that when you’re learning a move, you can’t focus on anything. You can’t be like, I have to go to the grocery store. I have to pick up the kid. I

[00:33:00] have to, you had to focus on that moment. And I am very bad focusing on the mo, like you keep saying, and I’m like, that’s great. I don’t know how to do it. I’m really bad at it because in life, outside of jujitsu, I am all the things, right? What do I have to do? Where do I have to go? What do I have to pick up? What do I have to complete? What task is due today? What task can I push off till tomorrow, as I’m sure you understand. Yeah. And so I need something to help me focus on involvement. I just dunno what. Brenda: So I think you just brought yourself to your homework, finding something that you can do physically, but that you know, that that works with your physical situation, but that takes your mind to a place where you really have to focus everything completely in the moment to take your mind off of some of the the other things. And as you do that more. You start to

[00:34:00] realize, oh, in the last hour that I was focusing on that everything just kept going on outside in the world and, and trying to let go of some of that control. Do you have thoughts about one, what some sort of activity might be that that fits that container of being physically doable, but would allow you to, to have some concentrated times of focus? Rose: No, but I can look at, I can think about it and at this moment it might not be physical. Maybe it’s, yeah, something Brenda: else. It could be something like knitting or adult color booking or, you know, there’s so many different things that I’ve heard from people that. That have been really unique and interesting and I would’ve never in a million years thought of them. So I think that’s a really good, you know, homework assignment for you to think through that and really make it an assignment. Don’t just be like, oh, I’ll

[00:35:00] figure that out tomorrow ’cause I gotta solve this problem. But the, I think what, what I’m seeing is that there’s a cycle that the more you try to control and focus on the outcomes. The more your body resists against that, and then that makes you not be able to participate in the self-care that then relieves the pressure. You know what I mean? It’s that cycle, right? It’s like a cycle. Yeah. Yeah. So you are gonna come out of this, trust me, you are. I can’t guarantee what that’s gonna look like, but you are gonna come to a different place. And when that happens. I want your seven-year-old and your fourteen-year-old and your now sixteen-year-old and your husband and everybody else who loves you to look at you and say, oh good. I’m so glad she took care of herself. ’cause she’s still here with us and she’s healthy and she’s smiling and she’s wise and she’s

[00:36:00] beautiful and she did that for us. You’re their North star and they’re looking like, is mom okay? Yeah, is my wife okay? And when you take care of yourself and you find these things, you find the tools that will allow you to focus and you let go of some of the outcomes. You’re really giving them a gift because they’re looking at you going, oh God, okay, mom’s good, right? And in three years, or in five years, when you look back at this time, maybe you’re gonna be. Having your own podcast or you’re going to do whatever you’re going to be doing, what do you wanna be most proud of in the way that you went through this experience? Because that’s where you can, and maybe you, you know, are you a journal or do you like to do journaling? No. So that could be something to try as well. Yeah. You know, just writing some of this down to say, in

[00:37:00] five years, what do you wanna think about yourself? And say, wow, I am so glad I did X, Y, Z, because that helped get us where we are today. That might allow you to go a look, ’cause I know you like to go into the future, so that might allow you to go into the future in a healthy way. Mm-Hmm. Because that’s going to give you some information about what you can actually do today. Does that make sense? Rose: Yeah. Yeah. I mean, I’m, I’m. I said I’m proud of myself, but I’m proud of myself for the, the progress I’ve made in understanding my son’s condition and trying to come from compassion already, even though it’s short. So, and you can check in with me in a year and see how my compassionate I am at the point. But, uh. That might have gone out the window when we need to reel that back in, but, um, at the moment, yeah,

[00:38:00] and I’m, I’m proud that I’m not angry and yelling all the time and all that, and just so I think I’ll look back and say hopefully I can continue that. Hopefully Brenda: you have a really unique, um, situation too, where you have your own medical condition and you have a child, another child with a medical condition. And I’m wondering if any time the anger starts to come up or the resentment or whatever, that you can really reflect on. Are you, you know, are you angry at your other son? Like, would you consider, well, I’m, oh, I can’t believe we’re gonna have to pay X amount for this medical thing for him. Mm-Hmm. Because a lot of this, just to get to the nuts and bolts of it, a lot of this. May not get covered by insurance. Oh yeah. And so there’s also an additional financial aspect right to it that can add to everything. And so I would just encourage you to continue to

[00:39:00] overlay that aspect of it. When things do go sideways, there is a relapse. You know, maybe. You could think about, you know yourself and saying, wow, I know if I take really good care of myself and I eat this way, and I move this way, and I think this way, I feel better, but I don’t always do that. Maybe you could consider that a relapse, right? Yeah. Like I know if I did these things, I would feel better. My son knows if he does these things, he would feel better. They look very different. But really it’s the same behavior, right? It’s the same thinking patterns, it’s the same coping mechanisms. As parents, we have a lot more in common with our kids who are struggling than we ever really wanna admit to. At least I have found that. And, and that can be hard. It can be a hard pill to swallow that we’re all, you know, when, when he’s in treatment, you’re all in treatment, you’re all learning, and you’re all looking at your own

[00:40:00] behaviors and patterns. And so. I am so glad that you’re in the stream to be able to just, you know, lock arms with all of us and we can love on you and, you know, be compassionate toward you and everything that you’re going through, and we’ll be there on your journey. If I, if I check in with you in a week, do you think you’ll have a list of, at least, could you have three ideas about an alternative to jiu-jitsu that you think will help you? Add some kind of focus time into your life. Does that sound Rose: reasonable? I will. That sounds reasonable. I will do my best. Yes. Brenda: Excellent. Excellent. Three alternatives that will get you deep into focus, at least for maybe an hour that can. That can just give your mind and your body some rest. And 30 minutes. We, we got 30 minutes. Okay. 30 minutes. We’ll start Rose: with 30 minutes. I have a seven. You have a hard bargain to me. Brenda: Yes,

[00:41:00] no worries. Alright, well how are you feeling? Rose: I’m feeling good. I, I, I’m feeling very good. I don’t know if anything I said will help anybody, um, but I hope it does. Brenda: It absolutely will. You have no idea how much it does help just to be able to connect with somebody who’s got some of the same issues. Um, some of the ideas that you have are, are really amazing and helpful, so Well Rose: thank you. Thank you for taking the time and helping and I’m gonna work on that. I’m gonna find something. Brenda: Okay, well I’ll be checking in with you. Alright, Rose: have a good rest of your day. You too. Brenda: You too.