Episode Transcript
Podcast recording for Heather Ross
deb: welcome back to the Alcohol Tipping Point Podcast. I am your host, Deb Mayner. I'm a registered nurse, a health coach, and alcohol free badass, and today on the show I have Heather Ross.
Heather is the host of the Living with Your Child's Addiction podcast. She is the mother of a child who struggled with addiction. She's a certified parent support coach. She has invitation to change certified, and she's trained in the craft method. Heather basically helps parents and people who love someone who is struggling with substances.
So thank you, Heather, for being on the show. Thanks for
heather: having me.
deb: Can you give a little bit more of an intro about who you are and what you. .
heather: Sure. So as you said, I work with parents that have a child struggling with substance use disorder, and I used to be a corporate controller, thought that that's what I would do for the rest of my life.
Had no interest in doing anything else, but when my daughter started struggling, it took us like five years to get help that actually made a difference in what we were experiencing and. . That's the reason that once I figured out what I could do to help myself and her, there wa I found like there was just this empty space for the family.
Any loved one, not just parents, but a spouse, sibling. Fam, you know, close friend, whatever, that there's this huge space where those people who are best suited to support somebody are not helped. You know, we're often told that we have to wait for our loved one to hit rock bottom and that there's nothing that we can do.
You know, that kind of tough love approach, which is what I got for the first five years. That's what, how my daughter was treated by the professionals and the things that were reinforced for me as I was looking for ways to help her and. . I spent so much time like Googling every day, like how do you help somebody who doesn't wanna quit?
Because that was where my daughter was. She did not wanna quit. And everything that I found was what you do once somebody is ready to quit. So fast forward five years, we've been living in utter chaos. You know, my daughter was about 17 by this point, and her addiction had escalated considerably. My daughter you know, she didn't just use alcohol, she used all drugs.
And, but they all resulted in the same thing for her. It never went well. And so by that point, , we're living in chaos. My relationship with my daughter is completely disconnected. She hated me because of me taking that kind of tough love approach because I didn't know what else to do. I, there was a lot of back and forth on my part.
Like there was the part of me that was desperate. To help her and desperate to get you know, to end this chaos that was willing to do anything. And so I would like act from fear and stray from my values and take that tough love approach. And then there's the part of me. that really wanted to act from love.
And so then I would go to the extreme opposite and, and just try, you know, being really just talking about it endlessly, , you know, she was just so sick of our conversations, but just trying to like, Be more of a friend than a parent. So I was just as unstable as she was. It was having a huge effect on my health.
I mean, I really started thinking that I was gonna die from all the stress and cuz I was getting sick, my hair was falling out. Like it was really having a huge effect on my health and I wasn't. Taking care of myself, not even my basic needs. And so we get to this point that I make this decision that felt really wrong to me as a mom.
It kind of felt like I was giving up, but I just didn't know what else to do. At the point, that point, I decided I'm just gonna stop everything. I'm gonna stop dragging her to all the doctors. I'm going to give everybody a break and just kind. See what happens, because I felt like I had done everything I possibly could at that point and nothing had worked.
So in that space, as I started focusing on myself, I started working with a coach, and that got me really focused on my self care, my health. Taking the microscope off of my daughter, I stopped trying to make myself feel better through fixing her, and just worked on creating my own inner peace. . And then I also found this book called Beyond Addiction, how Science and Kindness Help People Change, which is mainly the community reinforcement and family training approach, which is a very I'll, I'll call it a science and kindness approach.
And that's where I learned there were things that I could do that would support my daughter. Open up space for her to want to change. And so while she was still actively using substances and by this point she was using meth and heroin, like her addiction had really escalated, we were able to do, there was a lot of healing that took place like.
within each other and within our relationship, we completely repaired our relationship and were closer than we were before. Even though I was saying no to some things, I had boundaries like I didn't have before, but that also helps me. Be more stable and then I could bring stability to the relationship and be consistent.
And when I was consistent, that rebuilt our trust. And so over the period of about a year and a half, she started experimenting with harm reductions and trying different ways of getting into recovery. And eventually she did get into recovery and. , this is the hard part of the story. . I never know how I'm gonna feel when I say this.
We she was in recovery for about 18 months and she was doing really well, and she was figuring out who she was as a young woman in recovery, but some things started happening in the sober living house that she was living in. And it was more. then she could handle, and she ended up having a recurrence of use.
And during that recurrence of use, she got fentanyl and she passed away. And the one thing out of that, I think that's really important to note, is that I'm so grateful that I worked on myself and that. I am proud of the way that I showed up for her after I found craft and coaching and that we got to heal our relationship and she felt loved and supported by me.
And you know, I loved her unconditionally. I learned to accept her just as she was, even when she was in active substance use. So I feel like I. , the short time I had with her, she was only 21 years old when she passed away. So I think that that's something that's really important to keep in mind because there's no guarantees, no matter what.
And so if we focus on ourselves, you know, as loved ones in any capacity and like how we show up in any situation, and we, we, we stay focused on our values. , then no matter what happens, we can at least live with that.
deb: Yeah. Yeah. Thank you for sharing Heather, that I'm sure she is so proud of you now. And now you are helping other people, you're helping other parents and families and that's so meaningful.
And I important. And like you said, you were able to heal your relationship.
heather: Yeah. I think that, There's often a lot of a loss of hope because it seems like everything has to line up perfectly for there to be healing or to even have a relationship with somebody who's struggling with any kind of substance use, whether it be drugs or pot or alcohol.
Like there's. A lot of stigma and beliefs that you can't have connection or a good relationship and it, but it takes, it takes work to stay in it and knowing how to relate to somebody and take care of yourself in that difficult situation.
deb: Yeah. Well, can you share some of the ways that we can do this ourselves with our loved ones?
How can we help them when they are struggling with
heather: substances? The biggest way and the most important starting place is really taking care of yourself. Like I said, I got lost in trying to fix my daughter to feel better, but. We don't know how long this process is gonna be. Maybe, you know, you don't know when somebody's going to get in recovery or if they ever will.
So self-care is part of that, like taking a marathon approach rather than a sprint approach at first. You know, I was sprinting for years, just trying to do everything I could to control it. But that's not sustainable and that's why it was taking such a toll on my health. So even focusing on the.
things that seem so basic like sleeping. , exercising, , eating healthy meals, sl, you know, all, I wasn't doing any of that stuff, even taking time to drink water, like I was just so focused on her that I was really suffering. So self-care is, I would say the number one thing because you cannot help anybody else if you aren't healthy yourself.
And that's physical and emotional care. Get support for yourself as well, and make sure that it's support that aligns with your values, because as I mentioned before, some of a lot of the support that I got did not align with my values, but because I looked at those people as professionals, I took advice that didn't feel right to me.
So keep searching for support. aligns with your values and beliefs and feels right to you. It's not that it should be easy, but that it feels right in your heart as a parent. Another way. Oh, I was just
deb: gonna ask Heather, cuz I think a lot of people get stuck on this self-care and thinking that it's selfish.
And how did you overcome that? Or did you have feelings of that? Like, wait, wait, wait, wait. I should, I, especially as a parent, like, oh, I, I can't do that. I need to take care of everybody else.
heather: There was a lot of things that came together all at once for me to be okay with it. One of them being that it was.
more painful to stay the same than it was to change. You know, it was really, when I said I thought I might die, I, I had gotten sick and I ended up with pneumonia and I could not get better like I would. take time off work. I would feel better and I'd go back to work and I'd get sick again. I'd end up back in bed.
And I was just, remember my dad died of heart attack when he was 47 and I was in my mid forties, and I thought like, I'm gonna end up like my dad if I don't start taking care of myself. And then where will my daughter be? . So those realizations of how important self-care is and that kind of the, like what they say on an airplane, putting your own oxygen mask on first and how important that is.
And because if you don't have the oxygen, you can't help anybody else. . It isn't selfish. It's actually a kind, loving thing that you can do for yourself and your loved one. Because another thing is, if you are not eating or sleeping or exercising, then you're not even in a good space to access your prefrontal cortex, which is the thinking and reasoning part of your brain.
You're just, you know, in fight or flight constantly, you can't make good decisions or help anybody from. .
deb: Yeah. Thank you. Thank you for pointing that out. And, and what, from what you were saying, I mean, I think we think of self-care as extra, but like you weren't even doing basic care.
heather: No, I was like, you know, and I would normally make all of my meals Before that, I worked out every day and I wasn't like the perfect picture of health, but I took care of myself and it just got to where I couldn't, I could not sleep no matter what I wanted to sleep.
And I was just, I was in that fight or flight, and I would, like, I was eating out every single meal practically. I just was in this almost like a this state of not, I was kind of like asleep in my life, but like wa, like a zombie . So I just being stuck in that fight or flight, not being able to make good decision.
It, it, it became my new normal for a while, and so it was hard to even realize what was happening. It's kind of that like frog in a pot of water. If you just slowly turn up the heat, they don't realize. And so that was kind of what happened to me. Like the heat got slowly turned up and these new. The ways of living became my normal.
And then it started to feel like that, that this was just how it would always be. I started really losing hope.
deb: Mm-hmm. . So number one would be taking care of yourself and then what are some other things you can do? .
heather: So learning a skill like invitation to Change, which is that book I mentioned earlier, the Beyond Addiction, how Science and Kindness Help People Change Some of the authors of that book, Created this, I'll call it a framework for helping a loved one that's struggle, struggling with any kind of substance use.
And it's based in science. And it includes craft, the community reinforcement and family training that I talked about earlier, and. It's a combination of learning tools and behaviors for how you support your loved one, like positive reinforcement and positive communication like, actual skills that you can use in your relationship with them.
It also includes focus on self-awareness, self-care, self-compassion, and and like how your emotions affect you in this situation. That is very challenging. And then, Education about your loved one's substance use. So things like understanding that behaviors make sense. It makes sense that somebody wants to use a substance like alcohol or smoking pot or whatever it is because they get something out of it.
It's a positive reinforcer. It acts quickly, you know? taking the time to understand what they're getting out of it so that that can be replaced with a healthier behavior eventually. So it's really, there was a lot in there. It's a combination of understanding substance use and why somebody would do it, and that this is a, that it's like a bio psychosocial situation and not a moral.
situation so that you can release the judgment and be educated about it. Understanding yourself and your response and, and learning how to create a response that's very intentional, that feels right to you. And then also learning behaviors, ways to support your loved one. .
deb: Yeah. Are there any examples you can share about that?
Like positive reinforcement or like any concrete examples?
heather: Yeah, so I think, let me, I'll, I'll use an example for natural consequences would be like allowing your loved one to experience. , the natural consequence of their behavior, like not intervening. And something like that would be like not waking them up in the morning if they were out drinking the night before, or you know, not calling into work for them.
Maybe. , you make breakfast every morning and then not making, not waiting until they get up to make breakfast, but just go on with your normal schedule. Like that way allowing the natural consequence keeps you from getting in the middle of what they're experiencing. And also then you don't have to al create your own punishment, which I think is really easy to get stuck in.
And the problem with that type of punishment as well is then you become the negative consequence, and then all of the attention is on you instead of the actual consequence of the behavior. So if you're able to take that more nat neutral approach and not get caught up in punishing. allowing those natural consequences to occur, then they can make that connection between what they're doing and the result of it.
But you're also able to stay in relationship a lot easier that way, too. Like you're not doing things that you don't wanna do, and then feeling resentful about it later and getting mad at them, even though you said yes when you didn't want. .
deb: Yeah. And I, this brings up that, that term enabling, which I think you address differently.
So what are your thoughts on enabling.
heather: Yeah, I just wrote like a 12 page guide on this because so many times we hear like, just don't enable. I'm like, what does that even mean? And it just, it's so shaming and condemning and it just adds this new layer of fear and parents feeling paralyzed. Like everything that they do is wrong.
And that's like part of the tough love approach when instead people need to be told like, Parents or loved ones need to be told what they can do. Like what would be helpful. So I try to like when I'm working with somebody, tell them just like, let's just take that word off the table. Let's focus on what would be helpful to create, like seeing more of the behaviors that are healthy.
Cuz if you're worried about enabling, say, paying for a gym, me. might seem like it's enabling because then they have extra money that they could use for. But then when you're looking at it as reinforcing a behavior that you want to see more of, well then they're going to the gym and they're doing something good for their body and maybe they're connected to people at the gym.
And connection is an important part of recovery and living like a fulfilling life. So in that case, you could look at it as enabling health and wellness. So it's not. that everything you do is enabling more substance use. It's really stopping to look at, in this particular situation, what am I? Am I enabling health and wellness or more substance use?
Because it can change over time as well. Like I never gave my daughter money when she was in active substance use, but then when she went into recovery, I paid her rent for a. , I bought her groceries, gave her a chance to get on her feet. You know, in that case then it, it wasn't enabling substance use anymore.
It was enabling health and wellness and recovery. So it's really looking inside and looking at the specific situation. And a lot of times I hear parents. Taking advice from other people when they tell them not to enable and they regret it, and we're the only ones that have to live with the consequences of the choices that we make.
So, . There are things that I did that, I regret that, but I'm the only one who has to live with that. The person who was maybe judging me or thinking that they could do better at parenting a child that's struggling with addiction they don't have to live with the consequences of the advice they gave me.
They've probably forgotten about the advice that they gave me, but I am still thinking about those things on a regular basis. and having to forgive myself for them. So as hard as this is, I think that when there's that enabling talk, it adds this extra layer of pressure and shame and pain. And so that's why I really like to.
open up that definition and give, I think each parent has a right to decide. Like there's no black and white, no one size fits all. Like there's gray areas. And there's also prioritizing safety, right? Like some people say you shouldn't intervene at all, but dead people don't recover. So you wanna prioritize safety above everything else.
and then sometimes maybe you need to prioritize connection because without connection you don't have influence. So it's, it's really taking a step back and looking at the big picture and where you're going and that marathon approach, and really giving yourself permission to make the best decisions for you and your.
deb: Thank you. Thank you for clarifying that. The other word that I think is really tossed around a lot is that tough love. Yeah. What are your thoughts on Tough Love that approach? What is like tough love . What does that mean? ,
heather: it's another one of those things it seems to be like all encompassing of basically anything you do that's helpful is enabling, because I even see parent people telling other parents to not even help their kids in recovery or not to find a rehab for them and.
No other situation, no other like medical condition where we would say practice tough love. Like if somebody has heart disease and they're not exercising and they're eating fried foods and they're not doing anything to manage their stress level, nobody tells their family members to practice tough love, right?
Or somebody who is diabetic and eating sugar or something. We do what we can to support that person and. I, I don't know where this tough love came from , but I feel like someday we'll look back at a lot of the ways that we treat people who struggle with substance use of any kind and be just really sad that we did this, the way that we look at it, the, the stigma around it.
And I think Tough love, all it does is really leave parents with a lot of regret, like, I can't even imagine what I'm going through is hard enough, but I can't even imagine how hard it would be had I not found a better way. And just the anxiety that it brings up in parents feeling like if they have a relationship with their kids, if they're loving towards them, that they're doing something wrong or that feeling like they need to cut them off, you know, I had somebody tell me recently that.
When their child would relapse, they would cut them off and then they would've a relationship while they were in recovery. And that after like finding my podcast, she stopped doing that. And how much it just helped even with her anxiety to, to maintain that connection and support and loving her child through until he got into recovery again.
is this hard enough? And I feel like tough love just makes it harder on everybody. Mm-hmm. .
deb: Yeah. Thank you. Thank you for sharing about that too. So, going back to the steps, actually can't even remember if we were calling them steps or not, but the ways that we can help our loved ones what would you add to.
Ways.
heather: I think another one that's really important is defining how you look at if it's what you're doing is working or not, or redefining that. Again, a lot of times. , and I was stuck on this too initially, that abstinence is the only way that it's working, but there are so many steps between somebody being an active drinking or substance use and them quitting forever.
There could be a lot of attempts at quitting. There could be a lot of changes in behavior along the way, and if abstinence and lifelong recovery is the only way that it feels like it's working, then you're just gonna feel like a constant failure until that happens. And so I think it's really important to focus on.
You know, you're prioritizing safety, prioritizing connection that you are noticing changes in behavior that you wanna see more of and re you know, recognizing them and reinforcing them. Seeing all of those things as wins because any behavior change. Has a lot of small steps involved in it. And so celebrating those wins along the way make the process so much easier on everybody involved.
Like, again, I, I'll probably say this more, but it's hard enough, like we have to find ways to enjoy our loved ones and enjoy our own. Through this process, instead of putting everything on hold, waiting for it to get better, and so the way you define whether it's working or not can have a huge impact on how you experience the whole situation.
deb: Yeah, definitely. I have something I say along the lines of like, if someone goes from drinking like 26 days a month to three days a month, like that's something that should be applauded and not shamed down to zero. Cuz that's what we do. Yeah. We shame you until you get to zero, until you're perfect and then, then we'll start loving you again.
Then
heather: you're worth. Right. Yeah. And the I always hear parents saying like, well, they're not What's the word? They're not committed or they're not serious about it. If they show any signs of ambivalence, which it's like our human nature to want two things, right? We can really want to be in recovery or completely abstinence and also want to keep drinking or using substances at the same time, like we can want both.
Somebody can be serious about recovery and still really struggling. and. I think that, again, that goes into that black and white definition of what change looks like. Human behavior and change is a process. It's not this, this shiny, perfectly paved road. It's. This windy, narrow, curving, you know, dirt path most of the time, , that it really, it takes a lot of work and I think we underestimate and really undervalue how hard somebody is working and I think we need to celebrate that more, like you said.
Mm-hmm. , that everybody's worthy even, you know, at every moment. And we really. Just need to humanize this experience more like how would you wanna be treated if you were going through this? . You just never say never, right? You never know what's gonna happen in your life. So many things have happened in my life that I couldn't possibly have imagined.
I couldn't possibly have imagined that my daughter would struggle with substance use, that she would end up passing away from it. Like those are things that are completely out of my control. But looking at, I learned a lot from it. I learned about really, I have no judgment . If I do, then I stop and think about it, right?
I have so much more compassion for people and just realize that like we're all just imperfect humans and we just have to love each other where we are, and that opens us up to feeling so much better in this process. .
deb: Yeah, I agree. Well, what if, what if someone's in denial? What if you, your loved one, you can tell like, Ooh, they've got a problem, but they don't think they have a problem.
How do you manage that?
heather: Well, I think part of it is, Taking a collaborative approach rather than a confrontational approach. So if you are thinking about confronting someone and making them, you know, admit that they have a problem and showing them they have a problem, all that's gonna do is create resistance, right?
Like, nobody responds well to that, but that's our first instinct when we just, we just need them to see. And if they could just see, then they would change. And. So part of it is just creating a space where it is safe for them to see that, right? Like you're a person that they could even talk to about it if they were starting to have doubts about it or starting to see that there were some problems.
So, , you need to make sure that you're a person that they can come to and talk to openly. Because a lot of times I hear parents say, or other loved ones that I just wish they'd be honest with me. But then my next question is always, are you a safe person? To be honest with, like what's gonna happen if they're honest with you?
Are you ready for the truth? , you know, being ready to handle what you're being told and also being able to just sit with that information and not trying to fix it. That's another important part of it. When when your loved one opens up and talks to you, is not trying to fix everything, just listening from a place of curiosity to understand them.
and that can open up a lot of space for them to understand themselves. But when you're listening to fix, you're not really hearing what they're saying. You are only hearing what they're saying, just enough so that you can formulate your next point that's going to make them get it. . So it's really a lot in how you show up in the space that you create for them to be able to see that.
And then there's also like the allowing natural consequences so that they can feel the connection between their behavior and what's happening in their life. . And really there's also ambivalence recognizing that, like I was talking about before, that they might see that there's a problem and they want to change, but they also wanna stay the same because their substance use or drinking makes sense.
Like they're, it could be helping them sleep or cope with anxiety or you know, social. , you know, being uncomfortable in social situations. So also helping them make those connections. Like, oh, well, what, you know, what could you do instead? Like, what do you what? How else could you help yourself sleep at night?
So just being really curious and open and compassionate, and not trying to force it, because that's never gonna work. You're only gonna get. Yeah, I'm
deb: thinking about my own daughter and she's had a few episodes using marijuana and then we caught her drinking and she had like a, a bottle of tequila and y I just remember the next day and she was drinking by he.
Which, you know, as parents made us sad. And the next day just being like, gosh, what, what should we do? Like, how do we talk to her? You know, what should we say? What, what would be your response?
heather: So I think. Winding back a little to before the conversation is preparing yourself for the conversation. Like it's worth spending the time to make sure that you're in the right space going into the conversation.
So working through your thoughts and feelings about it ahead of time so that you can come in to the conversation as in a neutral space, right? So you're not going into a angry or sad. Or even looking for a specific outcome, like really practicing acceptance of where you are and not resisting the situation.
And our own feelings about it are ours to work through. It's not for them to fix by telling us what we wanna hear, because that's not going to get us anywhere. So really preparing yourself for the conversation, I think is important. Deciding what you. To get out of the conversation. Mostly for me, I would be focused on, focused on connection, creating a space where my child could be open with me.
And also if you go into the conversation, angry or something, your body language and your tone of. Is going to, that's gonna be what their brain interprets first. And so it doesn't matter what you say. So it's really important to again, go in with that neutral tone and body language. You don't wanna be standing there with your arms crossed and all rigid cuz that's gonna keep them from opening up.
And I think it's also. important to focus on con, you wanna keep connection because if you don't have connection, you don't have influence. I'm thinking for a second cuz there was something else. Oh, watching like you don't wanna talk to them in a red light moment, so you never wanna talk to them like while they're drinking or hungover, like waiting for a green light moment and then actually watching them in their response to you when you're talking.
if you go into a green light moment, don't be so fixated on having the conversation no matter what that you, you start to see red lights from them. They're getting frustrated, you're getting frustrated, things are escalating, and you just blow right through those red lights. So kind of thinking of like a traffic light.
When you see the yellow light, kind of pull back a little and see if you can get to the green light again, if you can't. , then you have to respect their emotions and what they're experiencing as well. That's how you're gonna get the most out of the conversation. And then
deb: how would you, I mean, do you punish, like in that case, like, it's like, okay, do we take the phone away?
Do we, I think as parents and as conventional wisdom or how it's been, you know, Dealt with in the past is like, oh, you need to punish them. You need to ground them, take the door off. Like how would you go about consequences from those episodes?
heather: I think it's, there's no right or wrong or one size fits all answer there.
Like I did all of those things with my daughter. She just ran. , she wasn't gonna be without her phone or she wasn't gonna be grounded. She, I took her the door off of her room every time I did something like that. , it just escalated things and there was, we ended up with a lot of emergency room visits and other really kind of traumatic experiences with the punishment.
Some kids respond well to you know, to like getting their phone taken away or being grounded for a few days. They'll make changes. So it's really like knowing your. what they respond well to, and also finding that balance of like not taking it so far that they're not afraid to talk to you. , right? So there's always that risk in there.
But what I've found and what studies find is that like punishment really doesn't change behavior very often. It's pretty rare sometimes. Then maybe like my daughter, she just started trying to hide everything she got really? Good at living this double life and making me think that things had changed. So she was just going even more into hiding and there was more of a disconnection.
So there's a lot of discomfort in there with feeling like figuring out what's right for you and your family and really taking the into consideration what your child responds to and what they don't. Because there's a lot of discomfort. With that feeling like if you don't think punishment's going to work, but feeling like you should do it, you've gotta manage all of that discomfort so you don't take action from that place of fear that you regret later and can get into a place of being really intentional of each situation being evaluated, each family handling it differently.
deb: Yeah. And I think what's what becomes difficult too with parents, and you've probably seen this, is there becomes like a good cop, bad cop. Like I, I can like center myself and, and be, and be there and present for my daughter more than my husband will go off the rails. Right? He's the one that leads with anger and fear and ah, you know, how do, what's your
heather: advice for that?
I think that it's really important for parents to get on the same page because it is so confusing. It's like the, your child ends up getting caught in the middle of it, so that has to be managed outside of the conversation with your child. So you go in there on this, with this united front. A lot of times, like when I work with parents I, I'll work with one of them, one-on-one, but I have an online program and they'll do that together to help them get on the same page.
Like this is something that might not go away. It's worth your time investment for you guys to find like what your values are in this, how you both wanna show up, like really being able to look at. If what you're doing is helping or not. So everybody being willing to change. That's why I call it family recovery because we get this focus that one person in the family is wrong and they need to change so that everybody else can be okay.
But. What works and is backed by science is when everybody's willing to look at themselves and make changes. And then it's not about this one person being wrong, like addiction and substance use doesn't happen in a vacuum. And I'm not saying that from a place of blame. But we could all use a little help with some healthier habits and coping mechanisms.
So I think it's a great opportunity to see what their substance use or drinking is telling you what you can learn from it, and just being open to how it could help your family overall instead of just seeing it as a problem. You can also see it as a learning opportunity because my daughter has been my greatest teacher.
She still is so. Letting go of that idea that you have all the answers. You know, I've, I learned so much when I stopped coming from that place and just opening up to this, this situation is here to, to teach me some things about myself, and I'm open to learning what it, what it, what it's here to show me.
Yeah.
deb: Now, before we started recording, I was just saying like, well this is a podcast about drinking. And I know you help people with all different kinds of substance use, and you had kind of mentioned like, well, honestly, you know, it can be cutting, it can be eating disorders, like they're all kind of the same.
Can you elaborate on. .
heather: Yeah. They all come from a place of trying to manage some level of discomfort within yourself. So like somebody who's using self harm or an eating disorder disorder, that's where my daughter started before she started using substances and. Studies show that say somebody who is purging or say cutting their, and when you're, when their nervous system is dysregulated, their body creates a lot more the natural painkillers, the opioids, and other neurotransmitters.
That actually make them feel good. When they do those things, they actually feel better. Whereas say if I was to cut myself, it wouldn't feel good at all, and I would just be in a lot of pain and I would only experience negative consequences for it, right? It's rewarding people who like to drink their brain has a different response to a.
than somebody who doesn't like to, right. Their brain gets a lot more reinforcement to want more of that. So it's all about the way it makes each person feel, each one of those activities, whatever the substance is. So there's a lot of, I guess, ranking about what's socially acceptable, right? underneath it all is this desire to feel better.
This at the, at a very basic level.
deb: Yeah, absolutely. I mean, I just, I think that's your brain in the nutshell. It wants to move you towards pleasure, away from pain, and it wants to do it the quickest way possible,
heather: and it doesn't care about fulfillment or living a great life. It just wants to keep you.
deb: Exactly. Alive for sure. Well, I know that we need to wrap up for today, so I, I really wanna encourage people to check you out and find out more about craft. How can they find you?
heather: I have a podcast called Living With Your Child's Addiction, and my website, Heather Ross coaching.com has all the information about my invitation to change support group and other stuff that I offer.
deb: Perfect. Thank you. So I will put links in the show notes. I'm gonna put the the book you mentioned too, cuz I think that's a fantastic book too. It is. And thank you for all you do and for all the families you're helping. I really appreciate you, Heather.
heather: Thanks for having me on today.
