Leaving a Family Legacy Greater Than Addiction | Recovery Vow Podcast

In this powerful episode of The Recovery Vow Podcast, Eric sits down with his friends, John and Louisa, a couple who share not only a marriage but also a deep commitment to recovery. With 18 and 16 years of sobriety, their stories reveal the raw realities of addiction, from alcohol and food struggles to self-destruction, and the hope that comes with healing.

Together, they open up about the paths that led them to rock bottom, the programs and communities that helped them rebuild, and the love story that grew out of their shared journey. Today, they’re thriving as parents, professionals, and people who model what life in long-term recovery can look like.

If you’ve ever wondered what it means to build a family and a future on the foundation of recovery, this episode will inspire you.

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• Transcript

  Hey guys, thanks for joining us on the Recovery V podcast. On today's episode, I'm sitting with John and Louisa, and these are some friends and neighbors of mine. Louisa has 18 years in recovery. John has 16 years in recovery, and I'm trailing right behind him with 15. But we're going to just share what addiction looks like uh from their individual standpoint, but then also what their marriage looks like in recovery, family, jobs, career, all of that is so important. And I just want to uh give them the platform and the time to just share what um their past looks like and what got them to where they are where they are now and how incredible that is. So just sit back and enjoy this episode. Welcome to the Recovery Vow podcast. I'm your host Eric Kennedy. All right. So on today's episode of the Recovery Val Podcast, I get to sit with some neighbors and some uh friends. I would say friends, John and Louisa. and you know, I've I've read some of their story uh over um the last couple years and I've been wanting them to come on this podcast. So, I'm so excited to have them with us today on the Recovery About Podcast. Thank you guys so much for being here. And I'm going to Great to be here. I'm going to lead you through a conversation. So, we're going to eliminate the border of what's an interview and what's a conversation. Okay. So, we're going to go all the way back to how long ago did you guys meet? Um well we met a couple versions of the story. Yeah. A couple versions of the story. You tell me your version and then John you tell me first. So um we met as the result of getting sober in Statesboro, Georgia. And um I went into inpatient treatment at a hospital there in May of ' 07. And then I went to a really structured we called it a halfway house but sober living residential treatment whatever you want to call it. I was there the same. Yeah I did the same. I was there for about a year and a half. And so there was a women's halfway house and a men's and I was I got out of that halfway house in January of 2009 and he landed um on the wings of victory um in the men's version of that halfway house in January of 2009. So we I saw him at meetings, you know, like I knew the we would we were in the same circles for a while, but you know, I don't think I we didn't officially meet until 2011 probably. Yeah. when he was out of treatment working at the treatment center, that inpatient treatment center, and I was back in Augusta living here, but I was very active in a nurse advocate group here as a part of kind of my probation for my state license, my nursing license. Um, and so part of that uh recovery, it was called a nurses advocate group. I had to do a bunch of things as I should have had to to get my license back free and clear. Um, and part of that was going to a weekly meeting. I had to get 12step meetings signed every week, but I also had to go to a weekly meeting just for nurses. And um, I got to participate in some interventions. And sometimes those interventions wound up in nurses needing to go to treatment. And I was taking a nurse to treatment and he answered the door. I was actually dating somebody else and I hadn't seen him in a couple years. And he'd, you know, gotten out of the halfway house. Um, he looked good. Like I I never really I had never really noticed him before, but he answered the door and he says, "Doubves flew out." Doves flew. Disco ball. Marvin Gay. Wind in the hair. This is the epic rehab romance. Yes. But we were not in rehab. I was 2 and 1/2 years sober at the time. And you were probably four, four and a half. Yeah. Cuz it was it was 2011. Yeah. That was It was January of 2011 cuz it was just after Christmas. And I called my best friend um who I'd gotten sober with and I was like, "John Martin is so cute." And um I hope now you made this phone call while you were dating somebody else. Yes. Yes, Louisa. But I know I know. And I Gosh, I I ended that relationship and we didn't start dating until Yeah. Four months later. Yeah. That's a good That's a good solid time to say, "Okay, we can do this now." Yeah. Uh like so he had like like what you said two and a half year two years sober. Well January. Yeah. The meeting at the treatment center would have been almost exactly two years. Yeah. Yeah. We didn't start dating until April 14th. And the guy that I was dating I hadn't been dating but like a month. But I took it as a sign that maybe I shouldn't be dating this guy if this one is so attractive to me. And then a few months later, we kind of connected over a picture on Facebook. A picture of where we ended up getting engaged was it was a picture of where we ended up getting engaged. Yeah. I went to a concert with a friend of mine in Charleston for Modeski. Who'd you go see? Modeski Martin and Wood. You ever heard? They're like an acoustic. It was actually just Modeski and Martin. Um but they I don't even know how to desri describe the genre of music, but they do a lot of percussive acoustic kind of like a Dave Matthews vibe. Yeah. almost like because if it is like you and I just became best friends. Yeah. Yeah. It's it's um you know Yeah. I don't know how to describe it but it's kind of this niche. Okay. You know so we went through a little town called Yee South Carolina and there's a uh church there called Sheldon Church. It's the ruin of an old kind of antibbellum church. It's this beautiful spot. And I of course took a picture and posted it on Facebook and she commented and I commented and she commented. I commented which then led to a private message which then led to phone calls which then led to dating which then led to marriage and children and look at you now and all that stuff trying to raise humans. A couple years probably after we got married, my brother for Christmas gave us a framed picture of the Facebook post which is church. Which is hanging at our house. It's the Yeah. The post with the the bubbles and conversation. Yeah. That's so nice. It's cool. Yeah. Yeah. So, okay. That's a lot. I mean, that sounds like a your whole story condensed very very quick, but I I want to dig into like what um what got you to the treatment center that you were in and what got you to the treatment center you're in and then safely knowing and it's okay to date like you guys had some time behind you and things like that. One thing that you mentioned, Louisa, was that you went to recovery meetings that were specifically for nurses? Yeah. So, I got I became a nurse in um I got my RN in July of 2006 and 10 months later got hospitalized where I worked with pancreatitis and at the time where I was working um they had a relationship with a couple of treatment centers, one in Statesboro, one in Alabama. I don't know if they do today because it's under different ownership, but I'm not here to speak on behalf of any organizations. I'm just telling my story. But so that if you got, you know, like if a nurse gets caught diverting or stealing drugs or if you get I got hospitalized there from acute pancreatitis directly related to my drinking, they offered you help. They said, "You have a job. You know, we we love you and you support we support you, but if you want to keep your job here, you need to go get help." And so, and you need to report to the state board of nursing. And so, when I got to treatment in Statesboro, I self-reported to the board of nursing that I had entered in patient treatment. And they put what's called a consent order on my license, which was kind of it's kind of like being on probation with the board of nursing. And they have all different kinds of consents. Um, mine was a private consent, meaning if you go look up my license on the state, you know, Secretary of State's website, you can't see that anything ever happened. Um, I don't even know if they do private consents anymore, but if you have a public consent order, you know, you can go look up anybody's license and click on there'll be a link that says license, you know, history of discipline and you can click on it and read about what what they what they've been kind of charged what they did. Yeah. Either if whether it was an ethical violation or, you know, anyway, kind of like a Carfax for nursing. Yes. Yes. And it's for any state license. Um, so when I heard from the board of nursing, they said, "You need to do whatever these the treatment center tells you to do. And once you go back to work as a nurse, you need to call this 1-800 number Monday through Friday to see if you need to give a urine sample. Um, you'll be guaranteed to give one once a month. And if you miss a day, you'll be guaranteed to give one the next day. Um, you'll have to send quarterly reports on yourself, where you're living, any treatment providers will have to send reports. your job, any employers you have will have to send a report every three months where you are, how you're doing, and then um you have to get three 12step meetings signed a week, and you have to go to a nurses group once a week. And it, you know, after being in the halfway house for about four or five months of kind of breaking rules and doing it my way, like this rule is I really don't this rule is kind of silly, so I'm not going to follow it. Doesn't apply to me. um kind of starting the steps but my conscience woke up and I that dishonesty which they they really emphasized honesty in our where we got sober. Um and it's very it's 12step based and you know the principle we were taught the principle behind the first step is honesty. See it's it's cash register honesty but it's also honesty about who and what I am. Yeah. And so my conscience woke up and I didn't have alcohol to quell that uh restless restlessness, irritability, and discontent. And so I wanted to leave and probably drink. I didn't say I want to drink, but I was like, I just want to go home and go to meetings. And they said, that's fine, but you won't ever practice as a nurse again in Georgia. And um and so I said, well, I'll stay. And that kept me there until I and I started I restarted the steps. I started doing everything I was asked to do and it kept me there long enough to realize this is what I wanted all along. You know, the the freedom, it gives me chills thinking about it. The freedom um that I and the peace that I'm not saying it's, you know, puppy dogs and rainbows every day, but the but the peace that I know is the peace that maybe I got that very first time I drank and then sought over and over again for 10 years with more and more alcohol and it just didn't work. But the peace that I can tap into today and that freedom of not having any secrets that I have today, no drink or drug could ever give me. So, um, alcohol was your main main thing. Okay. You know, it's it's um it's really cool that they let you work the program that way and they just didn't immediately take your license from you or but they threatened you with it. Yeah. A little bit. So, it's almost like they force you to find out that um just in the beginning that you need to understand that maybe your career was your higher power. I'm not saying that was your higher power, but you know, they had to have something that triggered here to that alcoholic or addicted mind that we have. Yes. How um do you remember like the first time you you took a drink and what made you Yeah. dive into that much um you became an an addict to alcohol? Yeah. So I um you know first I would say my first drug of choice was approval. Um and so as a kid like I just I don't I I still to this day I don't like conflict. I don't like controversy and I like good job Louisa. Pats on the back. And so um it you know I look at pictures of me now I don't think I was like overweight but there was a lot of pressure related to weight and so I started losing weight at some point and got um positive reinforcement for that and so that turned into disordered eating. So I would say that's and I don't share a lot about that in detail but it a lot of women in recovery and maybe men too struggle with disordered eating. So, yeah. Um, I was big- time perfectionist and, you know, crazy obsessed with my food and weight and exercise. And so, by the time I'm 16, I'm just this ball of anxiety who again is obsessed with numbers, my grades, my weight, um, what everybody thinks of me. And at one point, my my sister drank and my brother drank. They're both now sober, too. Um, oh, the whole family was. Yeah. Oh, man. They're all sober now. Well, they weren't then, but my my older siblings, two out of the three of them are sober now. Okay. So, my sister invited me up. She was at the University of Georgia. Like, I'm not blaming this on her at all. I I wanted to try it. Part of me was afraid of it because I grew up also very active in a church, and I thought drinking was bad, but I wanted to try it. And when I the first drink I had was in a dorm room at UG, um, and it was a glass of champagne. You know, they asked me what they were they're like, "We're making a run to the liquor store. What do you want?" and beer sounded disgusting. Uh, liquor sounded disgusting. And I thought, well, champagne looks cool, you know, so I'll drink some champagne. And when that alcohol hit my system, it was like, y, I could just breathe. And um, all that noise in my head just kind of went away. And so, you know, I didn't become a daily drinker right away. I would say in those first few years I really I was kind of afraid of the calories probably. Um but I would drink at parties on the weekends but I I wanted to keep my grades up, you know, but I I still like I still feel like my reaction to the alcohol was not normal. Like the my relationship with alcohol and I went to my first treatment for disordered eating at 18 years old and they told me that. They said based on what you describe alcohol does for you, you have the potential to become an alcoholic. And I would go back to that treatment center again at 22 or 23 and I showed up with alcohol in my system and snuck alcohol into the treatment center. And um and so by then of course was in full-blown alcoholism. So you know 16 first drink, glass of champagne just you know I thought golly this is amazing and then 18 go to treatment and when I came back um I you know I didn't do anything they suggested. I thought I had an agenda the whole time and I learned in what I hope is my last treatment facility like it's okay to have agendas but you got to share them. You got to share them with somebody. And um when I came back I immediately got into a relationship. I moved up to I was going to UG moved up to UG. Didn't go to any kind of follow-up meetings. Like again I just didn't and it was that summer because I got back from treatment early in the spring. It was that summer that I can remember feeling really on edge about food specifically and just thinking, you know what, I'm gonna take a shot. And because we had vodka or something in our freezer, I was living with my boyfriend and um I took a shot and it just I was like, whatever. It all go away. Yeah. And so I just over the next eight years because I was 18 at the time, I just drank more and more and more. Did you you feel like the uh because we I've had uh other females on the podcast that talked about the same thing and if you want to go back and watch that episode, you can. But um I I cannot remember her name. Um but she had uh an addiction to food uh and alcohol and the thought of losing weight because of the food. And so I'm I'm not exactly sure the proper name of that, but do you feel like the alcohol just tore down the wall? of uh anxiety that food gave you. Yeah, for sure. In fact, um you know, at that treatment center the first time that I was there the first time, there were girls who were so emaciated and malnourished that they needed NG tubes to get wow nutrition at night. And my parents sent me because the first time I went I was getting I was starting to lose weight fast and they were like if you don't send her now she could go down a path of like it's really hard to come back from when they get really really thin. And so you know I believe both those times at the treatment center saved my life. It just I wasn't ready to totally Yeah. Stop drinking, of course. But anyway, um I heard them tell some of the girls, not me. At least this is what I heard, right? If you're really anxious about food at night, have a glass of wine with dinner. And so it was You heard that where? At the treatment center. That's what I think I heard. Oh, maybe I didn't hear it, but that's what I heard. That was the eating disorder treatment center, right? Okay. So saying if you got this issue, but they don't know about the drinking issue, maybe just drink a lot. And some girls did have Thank God they didn't tell you to do a lot of coke or something crazy, you know. Exactly. Cuz that'll keep you from from from eating. Mhm. It certainly will. It certainly will. And there was a friend of mine the first time I went through was was addicted to cocaine. But um anyway, it's like what you know, both are maladaptive. But to answer your question, yes. At in that moment in that apartment that I can visualize still to this day, I was on the v the verge of like wanting to eat more than I should and I was like, I'm going to take a shot and that went away. That does I don't think that means that I can drink today, you know, because um you know, I think it was all of it was just trying to fill a God-sized hole inside of me. all of it, whether it was food, alcohol, you know, you name it. I don't think just because I didn't do heroin that I can go use heroin. I think at all. Um, but do I think I was using the alcohol to kind of treat the anxiety related to the food? AB. Absolutely. Absolutely. Yeah. I think women are going to hear this and because people often ask like on on this podcast and some of the work that I do um in addiction and recovery um you know people have asked hey does your book talk about you know food addiction or sex addiction or different things like that and I'm like you know it can be applied to all kinds of addictions. It's up for you to to use the tool for for applying it. It's it's not going to um cure anything. It's meant to be a tool, but it's just it's it's neat that you just brought that up and in the way that you did that you laid it out knowing that you have a food addiction. Now, was your did you did you define that? Did it come with a label like um Please don't get upset with me when I say this. I won't. Is it blemic? I I don't know the difference between bulimic andor anorexic. Yeah. So, so teach me that real You probably know the the DSM ver definitions, but anorexia, you tend to not eat, like totally restrict and not eat. Bulimia is more when you tend to eat, whether that be normal amounts or binge eat because there's also binge eating disorder where you eat just a lot of food more than you know is necessary to satiate the stomach or to like fill the stomach and then you um purge whether that be through exercise or laxatives or um self-induced vomiting. um diuretics um you know you name it but the bulimia is more when you tend to eat and then get rid of it whereas anorexia and I'm not giving you the medical definitions but anorexia is when you tend to just totally restrict not eat and so the very first time I went they diagnosed me as the very first time I went to that treatment center and I was my parents were before I went to that treatment center my parents had me seeing an eating disorder specialist in Columbia South Carolina and he diagnosed me as eating disorder NOS not otherwise specified because I wasn't really eating but I I was eating very specific things I could tell you in detail but I'm not but like a certain kind of cereal with skim milk for breakfast and then I would run six miles 5 days a week and if I didn't have like that very specific food you know I'd allow myself a baked potato for dinner with ketchup I know I No, but like it's a disease. Yeah, right. And I was so terrified. Ketchup on a potato is horrible. I know. But I was terrified of gaining weight. Terrified. It It's like telling somebody with disordered eating that they need to eat this food is like um telling an alcoholic you can't just stop drinking, you know, just stop drinking or telling a drug addict just don't take the pills, just don't don't do the heroin. It's like it's so powerful. But many people don't understand it. And I think at the same in the same way it's like telling somebody who's obese just lose weight. You know, I think there's a psychological component to it and there's a lot of stigma around it. But I think that you know obesity is just as much a disordered eating as So you were creating like um what you would consider a balanced meal plan through the day. No, I knew it was pretty messed up. No, I'm just I mean because the reason I No, it's not messed up. Well, I mean it is messed up, but I guess what I was going to say like I would drink a lot in the morning time that became like my favorite time to drink. And so when I would binge drink, is there a time like when you would binge eat? Was it morning, night, was it certain time or it didn't really matter? Um, Sundays, Sunday nights, I guess I would because I was so restrictive. Um, Sundays kind of came like I usually I didn't run on Wednesdays and Sundays because usually I was at church like I would go to church after school. Um, I did music stuff at the church. I gave all that up for drinking. But, um, and so I guess because I hadn't run on those days and it was a day of relaxing, I don't know, I would sometimes on Sunday night was kind of how the binging started and I knew I was going to run the next day and it just progressed and got worse over the years. Yeah. um to where you know I wouldn't say that before I went to the treatment center that first time I can't remember ever purging but when I came back and started drinking more and eventually like the drinking would help me not eat but then eventually I'd get so drunk that I would binge eat sometimes not even remember it and you were going to school at this time to be to get into nursing did you did you ever see yourself in like in the education that you were going through like okay I am this that I'm studying right now. No, denial is very powerful and they don't they I think they're getting better at it. Part of what he does professionally is trying to educate health care professionals more about addiction but I don't remember I'm sure we did learn about eating disorders. I'm sure at that point by the time I got to actual nursing school, which was years later, um I think I was pretty I knew I had an eating disorder, but like the alcoholism is probably the only disease I didn't catch in nursing school. Um that's something and I didn't mean to train wreck like you to tell you know more of your eating disorder than it just happened. It's a big part of my story that I'm not that I don't talk about as much because I think maybe there is more stigma with I don't know. Yeah. But um you know it's a big part of uh I would say today still I struggle with like in full disclosure like I struggle because there's so much pressure I feel on women to look a certain way. Um, and so I still struggle this day with listening to my body and are you full? Have you had enough? Are you eating too much? I'll say things to him like, you know, are you judging me for eating this? You know, and he it's like, of course not. Yeah. I didn't know. I didn't even know you were eating. Yeah. He he really doesn't. But I think I those messages were ingrained in me whether they were real or not. The perceived messages were ingrained in me at a very young age that women are supposed to look a certain way and you don't look this way. And um yeah, so it's it's hard. I would say my I have the healthiest relationship I've ever had with food today, but is it like perfect and am I just like totally at ease every time I eat? No. Yeah. I I I had an addiction to food, too. I mean, I used I was 73 pounds heavier than I am now. Um, but that was it was it came from I would put my alcohol before eating and so when I did eat, I would kind of binge eat because I didn't know if I was going to eat dinner that night. So, at lunch, I would just like pound it on because I would probably rather drink than I would eat. Right. Um, me too. For sure. This is going to be a big question and you can because this isn't live so you can just say, "No, don't put that in there." I just I just got to ask because you mentioned that you had siblings. Um do you feel like your addiction to alcohol or your addiction to food was it generational? And because you said the way that you were kind of brought up, not blaming your parents, but just like was there a stigma or an expectation that you feel maybe led to that? Not blaming parents, but or do you just being a girl did that? I think that um God, I keep looking at him. He's like, "Is there an inside joke?" No. No. He's just my rock, you know. Um I love that. And hey, you don't have to you don't have to answer. I think I'm just trying to educate listeners that may listen to this and especially the females because they they if it becomes an addiction. Yeah. I think that um with the substances uh there's definitely a history on both sides of my family with uh alcoholism and I don't know about drug addiction but for sure alcoholism my I would say on both sides of the family and I think that the thing I think about now is like gosh I've my parents put me in therapy I think the first time I saw a therapist I was 14. So they were trying to like they realized like gosh she needs help you know. Um whereas let's say my parents let's say they had something they struggled with. I'm not saying they do but they didn't have therapy and they didn't have like I think forums like this are incredible because the word is getting out. This this type this thing wasn't around when we were teenagers. Right. Right. breaks down the walls of how it's looked at as far as a stigma or absolutely brown bag or even growing up in a brown bag whatever right it just kind of levels the playing field because you guys are professional people with great careers with a lot of responsibility and I you know it just I look at you now like okay she came from this level and I came from this level but we're we're this because of where we are right absolutely and so I think you know it was for me it was the perfect storm of nature and nurture. And my parents, I love my parents. And I that's the main thing I want to say is I don't blame them. And um and I think it was just the perfect storm of my DNA combined with my story and I became an a girl with a eating disorder and a bad bad alcohol problem. But it wouldn't I wouldn't trade my path because we wouldn't have right you wouldn't have been a stage pro. Oh yeah him wouldn't have our kids. I love being a nurse and neesthetist. I love teaching. I like I just and it and I think my approach to um all those things that I've done now going back to school in sobriety. I loved going to campus sober. I love going to the library sober because I didn't do I couldn't do that as an undergraduate student, right? You know, and I I also feel like it helps me approach not that I'm perfect at all, but approach patients and approach students sometimes with a little bit more empathy because I've hit rock bot what I hope is my bottom and I'm not perfect. You know, that was my next request. What was rock bottom? What what was the worst day? Oh. Um, you know, so started with champagne and it ended with shots of cheap vodka. And I, you know, I told you I've got my license to practice nursing in July of ' 06. And it took 10 months of working night shift as a nurse to hit to get hospitalized with pancreatitis. And I would um, you know, uh, I work night shift, so I thought maybe this will help me drink. I I knew my drinking didn't look like other people's. never thought I'm an alcoholic, but there had been lots of red flags. Um, got pulled over for drunk driving, got asked by a professor if they smelled alcohol on me at a psych rotation, got uh had to repeat a insulin skills check off cuz I couldn't get the needle to the vial. Like I just they were like, "Are you okay?" You know, and I was like, "Yeah, I need a drink." Of course, I didn't say that. But anyway, lots of red flags, but I just didn't want to hear it and um or see it see them. So, I would get off work and I would go home and chug vodka, pass out somewhere between 10:00 a.m. and 1 or 2:00 p.m. or sometimes 5:00 p.m. And in that house that I was rent, I was renting a cute little house in North Augusta. But it was awful on the inside. Didn't even unpack one room. And I would look in that bathroom mirror and just be absolutely disgusted. I just I hated who I saw. And I thought, how how how did you get here? How did you get here? you know, your cousins are all physicians, married to physicians, you know, and your dad's a physician, your uncle's a physician, and you know, your stepmom's a nurse, and your mom is succ So like I just and you like can't even get yourself together, you know, and I but I did not know how to stop and I as crazy as it sounds, I didn't think it was the alcohol. I thought I've just got to get my stuff together and then I can drink like everybody else. I'm sorry. I talk with my hands. You know, you just got to get your stuff together and then you can drink like everybody else. You got to get the right boyfriend, a higher paying job, the right car. You just got to do XYZ and then you can drink normally, you know. But anyway, so I got hospitalized with pancreatitis and the doctor came in late that night and I lied about the amount I was drinking, of course. And he looked me in the eye and he said, "How much do you drink?" And it was like it was like I was naked with the spotlight on me, you know, like in the middle of somewhere I'm not supposed to be naked, you know? It was I felt so seen and revealed. I've been there. I I'm I'm walking through your story and living reliving mine in my head because remove hospital with a just a different job. Boss asked that same question, drinking on the job, the shakes. I mean, if you looked at my handwriting in the morning compared to the handwriting in the afternoon after I had a drink, it was like, "Okay, who did that paperwork versus who did that paperwork?" Because it was that different. So, I mean, I can see you shaking and holding the needle and all that. Yeah. But it just goes back to you mean you said if I had a different uh house, car, husband, all of that would make me or would solidify this being okay. But it really wouldn't have. And that's so and I didn't know what I didn't know, you know, like I just didn't. And that was then he said, you know, you can never drink again. And when he said that, I felt like he said, you're have to hold your breath the rest of your life. you know, like we're going to take this uh air from you now. Like I me I I was just like, "What do you mean I can't ever drink again?" Like I could not fathom a life without alcohol, you know? And so over the next few days, people from 12step people in recovery started showing up in my hospital room, including other nurses who were like, "That's cool." Yeah. you got who were working at the hospital who kept their who went to the treatment center where they were suggesting I go because I was hospitalized 10 days um and God just started showing up you know like um in fact the minister at the church where I was well I didn't really go to church at the time but the minister at the church where I grew up and spent the bulk of my childhood he was in recovery and he sent me a women's meditation book and I can remember reading through the book being like I want this spiritual life I want this life I'm not sure I deserve it, but I want this life, but I'm not sure how to get there. It's like there it was like it was on an island. And I feel like over the next couple of years being in that that rigorous treatment program, they gave me a boat. Yeah. Or a bridge. Yep. Or carried me across the water, you know. Um, so bottom was hating who I was and then being told like the one thing I thought I had, which was alcohol. You can't have it anymore. Well, what do I do now? And you get a shot. You get this one shot. But that one shot led you to John. This hot shot. Kasanova. Hot shot. Look at her shifting gears. All right. Okay. We're going to shift gears. John, walk me through um and we can go from Statesboro to you know your profession or we can go back and and dive into when you you know, however you want to lead us through it. Just tell us tell us your story and then I want to get to this love story before we close because I want to hear Yeah. I how two people in recovery live a life together. Yeah. I I can identify a lot with Louisa's story, although it's it's different in a lot of ways. I I always think of, you know, we both had alcohol kind of at the center, but around it she had her eating disorder, whereas I had drugs and self mutilation. Like I didn't have eating stuff, but it was like I at the end I was addicted to cutting and really and when I got sober. All right. So, you'll be the first person on the podcast that I've ever talked to that had that. Yeah. Yeah. It's it's interesting. I had stronger cravings in early recovery to cut than I did to drink. Um, so it was it was really but you know I I think of it like this. I whether it's an eating disorder or a process addiction to gambling or sex or spending money or alcohol or drugs. I I I think it all comes back to avoidance of pain. It's just different routes that we take to do that. So I I I think they serve a similar function. Um, you know, cutting allowed me to escape the pain that reality had become, but it didn't start out like that. Like I, my first drink was at 13. Same with my brother. Um, and it was like he was he was older than me. He was downstairs with his buddies and I was like the forbidden fruit. I was drawn to it. I was attracted to it. And I remember waiting till my parents went to sleep and sneaking downstairs and drinking the beer and and having it hit me and it was like there's a drug in just not you know the the wrong there's a there's a drug in that for me like it was almost like a like a double life almost like even at 13. I know it sounds weird but I get it. Y'all are best friends. It's interesting because before that experience, I had an experience that was almost as powerful with cigarettes, stealing my dad's cigarettes, wrapping them in in in a ziplo and putting them in a a vat of baby powder and then going out behind the football stadium on a Friday night with the friends and smoking the Vantage and they tasted Oh, the hole in the filter. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. And it tasted like Johnson's baby powder. And we could just head buzz, you know, dizzy and all, man. We're high on Vantage cigarettes. Yeah, it was great. The best football game ever. Yeah, it was wonderful. Um, and then, you know, things didn't My life didn't fall apart at that point. It wasn't until years later that I had a kind of a powerful experience um using drugs and alcohol and having the conscious thought that this is what I want to do for the rest of my life. Remember exactly where I was, who I was with and how it felt. And it was like at that moment it became primary in my life. And so mentally you check the box saying this is this is me, this is my life, whatever comes. Yeah. If I can feel like this, why would I not want to feel like this all the time? That was just automatic. That was my default. I didn't learn that anywhere. That wasn't something that was, you know, imprinted on me in my household. It was just that's just the way my brain works. And if one is good, five's got to be better. And that's just that's just the way I think from the the get-go. Um and so at that point things started to become very unmanageable and just more and more damage and destruction started to um kind of compile itself in my life. I ended up going to the University of Georgia um and completely coming off the rails. I I didn't have any structure of the family and um and I was there alone and I just ended up drinking um round the clock. I mean, I would wake up and drink and pass out and wake up and drink and rinse, repeat, repeat. And I was addicted to stimulants and bzzoazipines, and I would experiment with anything with meth, crack, hallucinogens, um, over-the-counter um, medications, prescription medications. I didn't discriminate be. So, one wasn't more powerful than maybe alcohol, but then any kind of drug that came your way, you would do it. Actually, I I would retract that a little bit to say that stimulants and and that's important because I believe that at the core of my um pathology, if you will, is actually ADHD. Um not to say that I'm not an alcoholic or that I can drink safely if I manage my ADHD. No, not at all. because ultimately the addiction became much more powerful. But with the ADHD the um it came with a lot of baggage. It came with a lot of um interpersonal it was called interpersonal rejection sensitivity. So I was very sensitive to interpersonal rejection. Uh so if I thought that you didn't like me it it hit me very very hard. I had a lot of performance anxiety because I couldn't do certain especially like cognitive tasks easily that I could see other people do. I was very impulsive, very hyperactive, which uh played in my favor in a lot of ways, but in a lot of other ways people found very annoying. Mh. And that How old are you now, John? 42. 42. So, you're just you're younger than I am. Um, did they did they diagnose you with ADHD even all the way back to that 13 year old when you first started? Before that? Yeah. Okay. Y I just had to ask that because I didn't hear a whole lot about you didn't hear a whole lot about ADD and ADHD when we were younger. Yeah. You know what I mean? So that's why I was asking. Well, my dad's a psychiatrist. Okay. So that Yeah. that um I think that it it was more um something that was he was aware of and so um he kind of recognized it in me. And so anyways, the stimulants treated my ADHD and they kind of um rectified the dopamine problem that I had. Um and of course dopamine is the main kind of chemical with addiction. So, it was just like a perfect storm. And I would seek out the the amphetamines and ultimately forge prescriptions and uh steal and and do anything I could lie and anything I could to get it. And then I would come off, you know, I'd take all of the amphetamines I could get and then I would come off of that just with this crippling depression. And then I would just drink uh to, you know, self-medicate. Um so ultimately things um deteriorated to I think I was 21 and ended up becoming very sick DTS and and a lot of um physical problems. Um ended up in the health health center at University of Georgia thinking I was having a heart attack. They sent me to a counselor. The counselor said how much you drink? It was a similar kind of experience with you and and the the doctor in the hospital and and honestly I don't know what I don't remember what I said but I I think I was honest to a degree um and he sent me to a drug and alcohol counselor. They walked in the room she didn't even sit down. She walked in the room and said you need to go to treatment and they um because I was toxic. I can so I can. So anyways, I ended up um going to treatment and I was in and out of treatment for the next five years. I'd get periods of recovery and and then relapse and then finally uh had a the kind of the major falling out which came with a suicide attempt and uh was put back in the same treatment center and was then sent to Statesboro. Can you tell me um if you don't mind just digging in a little bit? Can you share with us what your suicide attempt looked like? Yeah. So, I was uh my dad's a doctor and so I was stealing his prescription pads and his phone and his credit card and I would forge the prescriptions and go fill them. And um he caught me four times and every time he catch me he'd say, "You do this again, you're going to jail." and he just couldn't he just couldn't find it in his heart to do that. So on the on the fourth time in kind of a panic, my solution was to kill myself. And so I I got in the car and I went to Whole Foods parking lot in Atlanta where I'm from and I slashed both of my wrists and I sent a text and said, you know, essentially I was sorry and what I had done. And um of course that then set off a frenzy with my parents and the police and looking for me, contacting everybody I'd ever known, you know, and and ended up going across the street to a McDonald's and going through the drive-thru and I'm just bloodied and and you know, cut up and I got a cheeseburger and I ran out of gas right at the window. And uh and I'm I'm I'm totally like blacked out at this point. And the guy behind me got out and pushed me into a parking space. I finished a cheeseburger. I passed out. I woke up to my dad knocking on the window. Um and I just his face, it was just etched in my brain. It was just absolute terror. Um and so that then led me back to the same treatment center and I think led my parents to the point where they were like, "We're done. You either go to this long-term program or Yeah. Yeah. Because I mean I get parents that ask a lot too like what do we do? Like there's a balance between enablement and support but then you just I hate to say it they have to cut the cord at some point because that enablement is right there and nobody really knows the line. But what they did was that was really the best thing they could have done was just kind of cut it off. Right. Oh, it was it saved my life without question. I have to be careful because um you know I don't want to place any kind of blame on them to say that oh if they if they had cut me off earlier. No. And it's it's tough because there's some truth to that but at the same time you know they weren't the ones causing all of the destruction and making all the bad choices. So, um, so yeah, that's how I got sober and then we met and things, you know, we we ended up getting married about a year and a half or so after we had started dating. we got to know two and a half because we got engaged a year in and then two and a half and I was working as an addictions counselor um and did that for many years and then um went back to graduate school became a therapist so I'm a therapist today but then I've about gosh it's been over two years ago now I started working at Emory doing the director of education for their addiction center look at that yeah look at that you went from McDonald's drive-thru cheeseburger bloody wrists. Yeah. To the director of education at Emory. Yeah. Yeah. It's it's it's pretty wild. It's um there's a brand new car house. Everything you talked about you wanted, you know. Well, the the funny thing is like it's such an easy job because I talk about something that I could talk about in my sleep. I I I know it so well just because of my experience and and that's been my career. And so I it's fun for me, you know, I'm going up there, in fact, tomorrow morning, and I'm going to be running a program with like 15 undergraduate and graduate students that are nurses, social workers, premed, um, teaching them about addiction. I love that. It's fun. I mean, it's it's great. I think that it's a true testament um, to you both for just pouring into your recovery and what it it's given you. And people that that listen to this podcast, you'll see this couple and and they'll um automatically just see that they can do that, that they can they can do this and still be successful without the vodka, without the cutting, without the the me, whatever the drug was. Um and be successful people that just live in in society and parents and all of that, you know. Um so you guys have been married how long now? 12413 was the wedding date. 2013. So it'll be 12 years in December. So 11 and a half years. Yeah. And Lucy, you've got 18 years in sobriety. Yeah. And John, you got 16 years in sobriety. And I'm right behind you guys. I'll have 15 in September. So this is this is a power circle happening right now. Yeah. I love what you guys are doing. I think um I think that people are going to listen to this podcast and they may want to reach out to you. Is it okay if they do via like your email or something? Can we put that in there? Oh, yeah. Absolutely. And and I didn't want to cut you off, John, but just tell me um as we kind of land the plane, what's been the best moment since sobriety outside of your wife? Because this is the absolute best, but is it your career? Is it is it what has sobriety given you um that just you kind of hang on to that you would want a a person listening to know about? What immediately comes to my mind is the birth of our son who is our first child and the the immediate transformation of becoming a father which for me h it was it was an immediate and profound just I became a totally different person and now he's eight and so and I've been sober the entire time and and we get to uh model for them what it's like to live by spiritual principles and and we're not perfect and we model that for them too cuz they're not perfect either and they need to see that it's okay to not be perfect. So when we make mistakes and we which we do every day I don't look at that as a bad thing. I look at that as we have an opportunity to show them it's okay just to make mistakes like because you're going to um and so that's the that's the first thing that comes to mind. But the other one is graduating uh with my undergraduate degree because I didn't finish school until I was 33 I think and I carried a lot of regret and guilt and shame about that for many years. And so graduating from Nor Eastern was a huge huge I mean notwithstanding as you said the the marriage and and and our relationship but um or the wedding I should say but um yeah th those two things. Yeah. Do you guys um do you guys um sponsor or lead people in recovery now or Yep. Yep. That's great. That's great. Well, I do want to land the plane by um my little plug, which is going to be um I'm going to give you guys two copies of my book, Marriage After Addiction. Now, here's why I want to give this copy to you. Not because you know you um you have to go through it and do it. Um you you've kind of done it. You've you've shown people what marriage after addiction looks like. I would love for you guys to read through it from a clinical standpoint because we had we had clinical backing in this one just to see, hey, this this is good or hey, you could consider revising it in this area. It's super practical. It's written as a workbook for couples. Um, and I would be honored uh I'm going to give you a couple copies of it to just take it and give me just some honest feedback from your point of view and honest feedback from your point of view. And um I would love to have you guys come back on the podcast. um individually if it would be okay. Yeah. Um you know, we we kind of told your story a little bit, but I really want to dig into that cutting. Um and I want you to have an opportunity to come. No pun intended. Dig in. Oh my gosh. I didn't even think that way, John. We can change that. No, that's I think Leave that in there. Leave that in there. That's funny. You got to laugh. Great. That's We laugh a lot. I probably laugh too much. But um but yeah, I would love to connect with you guys even more. I know we live in the same neighborhood. Um, and uh, just just would like to get to know you, you know, just having a connection to you guys in town. Um, but yeah, I I want to thank you so much for coming by the podcast and um, do you have any questions for me? I look forward to reading that. It's great. Yeah, it's super I mean people they don't they don't get intimidated because it's not real thick. You know what I mean? And then because people come out of come out of recovery is kind of where I like to catch them at like if they're in treatment. Um, this is written to the supporting spouse, but you guys are both supportive spouses, still a person in recovery. But when I got out, um, there wasn't anything for my spouse to do. Um, and a lot of times when people get out, their spouse is just kind of sitting there waiting like either to catch the next bridge that's about to burn or, you know, but there's nothing to kind of heal the past. So that's where this thing's evolving. Like we talked about a minute ago, we have podcasts now. We have these different the the level ground, you know. So, um, yeah, here's that. And appreciate you guys coming by the the podcast and hanging out. I know we've been trying to work it out for a while, but, uh, I do want to do it again. Yeah, we'd love that. Enjoy this episode. If you want to connect with them, um, we can get you in contact with them. If you want to connect with us through becoming a sponsor or a donor, you can go to recovery.com. You can subscribe to our YouTube channel or check us out on any of our social media platforms. We would love to have you connect. You can email me direct at recoveryvgmail.com.