How Do I Walk Away After Being the “Other Woman”?

the main woman has been there.

He told me that we could no longer be seen in public together. You don't have a special secret thing. You have a lot. Hey, what's going on? What's going on? This is John with Dr. John Deloni's show, common to you from Nashville, Tennessee. Talking to real people, we're going through real challenges.

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It's got the Tulsa, Oklahoma, and talk to well, well, well, well, well, my Michelle. What's up Michelle? Good morning. How are we doing? I don't know. Well, I'm talking to you, so I'm doing kind of okay. There you go. You're up and out. You're up and out. You're up and out. I'm telling you.

It says that talking to me ruins her day, but I appreciate your kindness. So what's up? Um, well, my question is how do I walk away after being the other woman for probably about two years? Tell me more about it. Okay, so.

Actually, let me do this. Instead of, I want to hear the story, but when you say,

“it sounds like you're asking me for a mechanics question, but I think you're asking something way deeper.”

Because like, how do you walk away? You block him on everything. You stop returning his calls and you deal with the heartbreak and the grief, not only of this relationship, but of the fantasy of it all, and you at some level violating your own core values, which is I participated in long term deception. I'm going to agree with the crap out of that. I'm going to be sad.

And I'm not going to be about finding my own new relationships, my new friendships, et cetera, building a life that I want to live inside of my own skin within. That's, that's a mechanic side. But it sounds like you're asking me a deeper question. Well, I mean, I, yes, all of those things.

That is, I think about those things all the time. Okay. Tell me what makes this so hard.

“I think if I knew the answer to that, I'd be able to do the mechanics to it.”

That's fair. That's fair. We have been seeing each other longer than the other. Well, I'm the other woman, but, you know, the main woman has been there. Okay. So I'll stop. I want to interrupt as we go because I want to break this, the story that is taking hold in you.

Okay. So when you tell me this story and I'm going to knowingly going to jump in, okay? All right. So when it comes to longevity, doesn't matter. All right. Keep going. So we started seeing each other. And it got serious pretty quickly, which kind of scared me.

So I wasn't ready for all of that. And then he decided he was going to start seeing other people. Which then I didn't like that, but I just dealt with it. And then eventually he told me that there was somebody that he was, I guess, more serious way. And so at that point, we could no longer be seeing a public together.

And at first, I did do the mechanics of it.

Right. Like, I'm not going to be part of this. I'm not going to participate in a lie. You're dragging me into your mouth, but he just won't go away, ever. Okay. Let me jump in. You won't let him go.

Right. Right. No, you're right. Yes. No, you're right. I, for some reason, I, I can't. I can't. The, I, every, I have contact with him every day.

And I just, I, I've tried. I have as millions of talks with myself about why I should

It's not fair to this other person.

“You know, he's not a nice person for doing these things.”

Yeah. But then he'll call or he'll text or I'll see him and I'm right back in it. Like, I just. So P, P, M, L, D, who's a famous thinker and therapist and writer.

She's the one where I was first introduced.

I don't know her. She passed. She's passed away. But she's who first introduced me to the idea of love addiction. The idea that a person, because here, here's the definition of addiction. It is continuing to do a behavior that you know has adverse consequences. It's not good for you.

And yet you feel powerless and continue to do it anyway over and over and over again. And you know that this is not a good human being that you're with. You also know that this is a violation of the person you project yourself into the world to be. And yet. So what if we looked at this fantasy, this, this, this, this entity that happens to be a person

and not a drink? If we looked at this person as an addiction.

Because if we change it, because right now you look at him as somebody you love

and somebody you know you've him better than even as own girlfriend knows. And that you'll have this special bond. All of that is fantasy. You don't have a special secret thing. You have a lie.

And it, and it, and it, I've known him longer. I know him deeper. I know the glands across the room and we're not supposed to be seeing each other in public.

“I, it feels like you've created this secret world with this person.”

That's, that's how I define intimacy. The creation of a secret world between two people. But you don't have a secret world with this person.

You're on the outside of his secret world.

You're a player in his game. And so, so let me ask you like, why now? After two years, why now? What, what is this addiction? Let me ask you like, like, what is this addiction?

So, you may have heard me say this on the show. I don't beat people up for drinking or for struggling with sex addiction or pornography addiction because often those things are the actual solution to the real problem. So, what is he solving for in your life? A fear of loneliness, shame, a fear of I'm this old.

“And this is as good as it's going to get.”

All men are like this. So, I mind as well. What is he solving for in your life? All of those things. Tell me about him.

All of those things. I don't trust men. I don't trust them. Not even a little bit. Okay, fair.

I don't. Life has taught me from a young age that they are not to be trusted. Fair. It's a way to learn to experience. And I'm not going to, like, your body knows that as a truth.

I'm not going to, I'm not going to fight you on that at this time. Right? I'll accept that. You've learned over time, over experience. I can't trust them.

Okay. Now, there is a fear of loneliness that this is, this is as good as it's going to get. Not necessarily because I feel like, okay, well, they're probably as part of me. That feels like I'm not worthy of anything more than this. For sure.

Here's how I know that's true. Here's how I know that's true. You told me that you didn't want this and you didn't need this. You were going to be a part of this and then your exact words were. I decided to just deal with it.

I did. That's those are the words of somebody who has learned over time that what you feel and what you want, and what you believe simply doesn't count for anything.

And then there's also, in that same vein, the fear of vulnerability.

“Right, so I don't want, it scares me to death to think about having to open up someone new.”

Right, like, this man knows me very well and he knows everything that he knows all of my, mess, all of my trash, all of my chaos and the house to open up to someone new. There's the fear of rejection and not being loved for who I am and what I come with. And so it's just easier if I have part of someone who I don't have to hide my stuff from. Then to think about having somebody else in my life that to get to know someone all over again.

I don't want to do that. So can I sit here with you on that? I get that. I feel that for real.

And the way you just described that is 100% addicts talk.

I've had that exact same conversation trying to talk to somebody about going to rehab. And they don't want to rebuild their life over again. They don't want to meet new people. They don't want to come up with new life rhythms. They just stare at the idea of going to the gym and like changing how they interact with the world.

And they're like, dude, I can just have a drink and it all stops. And I get that, I get that.

“And it's these moments when you have to either A, you have to come to the conclusion yourself that you're worth more than this.”

I can't talk you into it. It's a hardest thing in the world when you care about somebody who's struggling with addiction. It's the hardest thing in the world. I can't, I can't make you look in the mirror and believe you're worth more than this. That's why they say most people have to bottom out.

I just don't know that I go ahead. I'm sorry. I just don't know that I can, I can process any more change, any more upheaval. But let's talk about it a different way. I don't know that you can carry the burden of this anymore.

And so what I want to tell you is change is common. This ends badly. This ends in heartbreak and deception. It ends in ash. There's no way this works out of me in.

“And even if he calls you tomorrow and says, I've had this big revelation, this big spiritual awakening.”

I've broke it off with the other woman. You're my person for life till death through his part. You would still sleep with one eye open for the rest of your life. Oh, I know that. This doesn't end well.

And so here me say, change is coming.

I always tell couples like who are married.

You can have the hard conversation now at your kitchen table or you can have it in a divorce attorney's office. But you're going to have the conversation. And so for you, change is coming. Do you want it to be on your terms? Towards whatever light you want ahead towards.

Or do you want it to be on somebody else's terms? And pile more shame, more guilt, more exposure on this thing. You think it's vulnerable now. Wait till she finds out and puts it all over everywhere. This will come to light.

I would rather you be holding the flashlight when it does. Okay, so how do I. I mean, if we're, we're phrasing it as an addiction, which I can understand. Okay, so how do I. I mean, if we're, we're phrasing it as an addiction, which I can understand.

It's like a, it's a dopamine sex, right? But how do I? I mean, not really, but it, but it doesn't matter. Yeah.

It's okay. How do I.

“Well, I mean, I, I think, here's the thing.”

You, I think you just gave, gave me a great insight.

The, the tendency here is to, to make things more complex than necessary. The moment. The moment. The moment. You start thinking of, well, where am I going to get my dopamine in oxytocin?

How's that going to react with my serotonin? And I need to, and how am I going to not do this? And how can I not do that? All of those questions are dumping variables in. It's a way that your body, act feels busy without actually solving the problem.

We're going to, we're going to, we're going to solve for simplicity here. I'm going to for 30 days for 60 days.

I'm going to go stone sober.

No contact. I can't do that. You can't work with them. Do what? I work with them.

Well, I just got more complicated. Yeah. Here's the thing.

“If you were an alcoholic and you worked at a bar, I would tell you got to get a different job.”

This ends with you unemployed at some point anyway. You know that. Is he your boss? Mm-hmm. Nice.

It's for sure ends in one or both of y'all's unemployment. You know that. This is a train that's left the station. If he's in a position of power over you, you can go sit down with HR. You can have that conversation.

Here's the thing. Any sort of major life change like this requires major life change. And you can see him for a period of time. And you don't have to text him. You don't have to return his calls.

You don't have to have private conversations in the hallway. And since this is a complicated employment issue now, I would document the heck out of those things. Because if and when he moves to fire you to get you moved or demoted, you'll have these things written down and save my boss. Carry it on a secret sexual relationship with me for two years.

And I felt trapped and stuck. That day's coming is when I'm trying to tell you. Get the all the firewood and the coats and stuff you need. But when you tell yourself already, I can't. And it tells me you're not ready.

Because the folks I meet with regularly are struggling with addiction say, I have to. It's time. Nobody can make that. Nobody can make that decision for you. Call me anytime and show. Here's a crazy thing.

“I believe in you more than you believe in yourself right now.”

And in the dark moments. Remember those words. I believe in you. We come back and ask if stepping away from politics to protect his mental health was the right choice. This show is sponsored by Better Health.

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Alright, so here's what happened.

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Go to Hallow.com/deloney and sign up for free today. That's Hallow.com/deloney for three months for free. All right, let's go to Duluth, Minnesota and talk to Michael. Hey, Michael, what's up, brother? All right.

Tell myself what I was going to do with this, but I did write something up so I don't forget. Oh, you did? You did? You did. Over the last several years, I was really invested in politics, but that I mean, I followed everything religiously. On social media, with people I talked to, things I watched, everything, it was consuming. And a big turning point for me was when Charlie Kirk was assassinated, I respected him.

And after that, my best friend of 25 years posted something on Facebook saying that he deserved to be killed because my friend disagreed with him. And I said him a message saying that was hurtful, and previously my friend had post saying that if any of his friends voted for Trump to delete him as a friend,

because he didn't want to be associated with those people, so I never said anything political ever, ever, ever to him.

But I did tell him that I liked Charlie Kirk, and then I did vote for Trump, and I'm not going to read the comments on this video. I told him. I told him how I really did do not care who my friend voted for. He's my best friend, and I loved him, and I was hoping and would assume he felt the same way. But unfortunately, he didn't, and he sent me basically a ten-page research paper on why I'm wrong, and we have not spoken sense. So since then, politics has really added nothing positive to my life. I get stressed out about every single thing happening in the world.

Every little election feels like the most important election ever, and I would lose sleep over some random election and Vermont or something. And I couldn't do it anymore, so I completely erased everything news politics from my life. I unfollowed everybody on followed podcast, everything even remotely political. My question is, did I do the right thing, because I want to know what's going on in the world, but I don't know how I can, because when somebody posts anything, even remotely political, my heart starts racing, and I just have to immediately close it, or I'm laying in bed, and something will come up, and then I'm like, "Well, yes, I'm not falling asleep for another hour, because it's something remotely news."

“Sure. Is it okay to be like oblivious, or am I just covering up the real problem?”

Man, what a great, great, great question, and first I just want to tell you, thank you for being thoughtful about it.

Thank you. There's so much here. So, let me back out, and I'll use Charlie Kirk as an example, and I know even saying the name Charlie Kirk is a third rail thing, right? So, have you heard of the, I don't remember exactly how it's called, but it's essentially the, the three way problem with Charlie Kirk? I have not. Okay. So, the three way problem with Charlie Kirk is, because of how algorithms work. Depending on who you follow and like and what are in support in any part of your life, if you're a hunter and a fisherman and a teacher and a dance instructor and a whatever.

The Charlie Kirk you get on your feet could be one of three different versions of a total person. And so, you know what, I'm going to back out of Charlie Kirk, because it's just so contentious, just feeling just so heavy.

“I'm going to go to a comic who I have high high respect for his name's Andrew Schultz. He's not everybody's cup of tea, he's pretty vulgar, but I think he's one of the most brilliant minds working today.”

He had, he has a podcast that he, that, that I listened to and he's got funny people on a comedian, some of it, I just fast forward through it, because they're just being crashed and whatever.

And he, I remember a very thoughtful conversation he had on his show talking about when it occurred to him that depending on your algorithm. You may only know Andrew Schultz as the right wing super Republican MAGA guy, high Trump supporter. And depending on your other feet, you may only know Andrew Schultz as the guy who had two socialist politicians on.

Yeah, and that's all you know, and you may have a third inside of him as just this comedian who tells crashed jokes a lot.

Right, or you may know him as a comedian who is a savant at cultural comedy. He goes into all sorts of other countries, other cultures, and he goes right at him with really deep layer jokes, where they feel like, oh, we're seeing a known, and they're getting made fun of in really like uncomfortable ways in there all in.

“It's like he gets welcome to their table, you know, like you can make fun of him, I can make fun of my family, but you can't he is a master at saying, oh, I'm one of y'all, right?”

And so depending on your algorithm, that's a different version you get.

And so when he discussed that, I had a ton of compassion all the sudden for everybody.

Because depending on the world that your algorithm feeds you, that's all you know of the world. Yeah, and so if somebody has this deep-seated like vitro against somebody, I've just developed a compassion for that person, because I have to believe that's all they get all day long. Right, wrong, or indifferent. And it's consuming. And it, there you go, it becomes an addiction, it becomes consuming, it becomes almost compulsive. Yep.

And so you have recognized that in yourself, and you've backed all the way out, and now you're dealing with the other part of this, which is, when something consumes us, whether it's our work, our dating life, our a person or politics, it usually is filling a vacuum. Other places in our life.

“It's so my question for you is, where do you feel dead in your own skin? Where do you feel powerless? Where do you feel anxious?”

And is politics, this obsession with politics? And what you're talking about is not having an idea of what's going on in the world. Your way past that, I've been there too, brother. And so what else is happening in your life? Where do you feel dead in your own skin? Where do you feel powerless? Where do you feel like you were just a beastball in the ocean? Getting cast around.

“Well, so I'm married, I have three boys, and another one on the way. I've wanted to know if it's a boy or a girl.”

But another one on the way, and I, like I was just talking to my wife last night, I was in such a fun, because we had a snow day yesterday, because we had, first blizzard I've ever experienced.

And like, I have, and I always have had such a short temper that I just, the smallest little thing I blow up, and then immediately I'm like, I did not need to blow up over that.

What's the history of that? My dad always had that. My dad had, my dad worked a lot. I mean, I saw my dad a lot, but my dad had, there was no, like, slightly annoyed version of my dad. It was when he got mad. And he freaked out. Like, one example was, we had a computer that wasn't working right in the basement, and he was downstairs working on it, and we hear a scream in a smash, and he comes up stairs and he had ripped the mouse out of the computer, peeled the buttons back, and like slammed it on the ground, and then he walked upstairs, and we're like, what's wrong? And he's like, oh, nothing, just the computer wasn't working.

So he goes from zero to 100, and then back down. Do you be a favor, okay? Yeah. You have any siblings? Yes. Older or younger, or both? Two older, one younger. Okay. I want you to close your eyes real quick while we're on the phone here in your car, and it's kind of weird hopefully your students don't see you. And I want you to picture yourself at 10 years old, fourth grade, standing in the living room with your childhood home.

Smashing things, yelling at your mom, going after your little brother.

“I want you to feel that in your body. Be in 10, and completely powerless at the rage of this man.”

No 10-year-old, no 10-year-old, should be scared of their dad. Okay? I'm sorry, is all bloody hell that happened to you. Your dad should have been your warm safe place of strength and starting this, and he was an electric fence, and you never knew when he was going to shock you. Often man who grew up in homes with emotionally immature, emotionally chaotic, rageful fathers do one of two things.

They seek power and control everywhere in their lives, and they can't have it, because that's not how the world works, that's not reality.

And they recreate the story of their childhood, with short tempers, with anger, with demands, with a need to feel ahead of the curve.

“You had to look around, learn how to look around corners, because otherwise you get your head knocked off as a 10-year-old, of course you're doing that as an adult, or men they disappear from the world.”

They just mocked out. And that's not you. You're a man of character and integrity, and so you've got responsibilities and you love deeply, and also you have a very clear sense of the world needs to be a certain way. You're trying to force stability into an unstable world, even having to do this in your kid. And politics is one of the few places where we are reduced to how small we actually are. Because we get one vote every four years, we get one vote every two years. We get votes in local elections.

And we realize that our influence is actually greater, not with what we thumbs up or thumbs down or long posts or 10-page diatribes to our closest friends. But in how we treat our neighbors, how we open our doors, how we're hospitable, how we do the next right thing, day in and day out over a long period of time. And when we live like that, we're forced to deal with the nuclear reactor in the middle of our chest. You want to say him? Yep. So, and that was part of my frustration because I like you are really helpless. You get all worked up over this random election, but there's literally nothing I could do about it.

And you know, I would maybe comment on some things here and there and whatnot and try to get people to if they run the fence to vote one way or the other, but then I'm like, it's not worth it. I just, it was causing so much stress and there was nothing good coming out of it.

“Right, so my question for you is, where is their good?”

In the world or in my life. Where do you have purpose? Where do you put good in the world? At home and at work. How do you do it at work? Treat kids like human beings. That's not enough. Go deeper than that.

I try to make it very clear to whether they pass my class or not. I want every single kid to know that I truly care about that. They have a couple of kids with ass right now, but they come and talk to me, they come and tell me what's going on in their lives. I want every single kid to walk in my room to know that I truly want what is best for them. Okay.

And common from young people who grow up in traumatic households is this powerful internal drive that nobody else will ever feel like I felt.

Yep.

Trying to give what you don't have is just the waiter who continues to fill up people's water glass, but never goes back to the source to refill their picture.

“And so here's a couple of things. Number one, I think you did the right thing detoxing from politics.”

I feel better. And that is different than bearing your head in the sand and you know the difference. Right. I've learned I can't get into that ecosystem because they're too good. Yep. The neuroscientists who partner with the techno wizards who partner with media companies are simply better than my brain chemistry.

I'm at peace with that. Yep.

Their fonts, their volumes, their breaking news stories, their slants, they're just better than me.

And they're not selling me information, they're selling me a drug. Yep. Yeah. And at the end of the day, media companies, all of them, are publicly traded companies. Which means they have one job on planet Earth.

That is to sell ads to get clicks, not to give you information. They would be failing their shareholders if they did not do whatever they could to make you feel like if you don't see the next thing, your life's in danger. And so when we back out and say what they're giving me is not information. They're giving me heroin. They're giving me cocaine. Then that makes it easier to walk away. And then I have to do the hard work of finding reliable sources where I can get some really dose of what's going on.

Yep. And then I can get all my life. And getting all of my life does not mean bearing my head in the sand, it means it asking, "Where can I show up for myself? Where can I be in service to myself?"

“So that I'm well and I'm whole. And by the way, brother, I've spent some time with a trauma therapist and I think that's where you need to go.”

You don't understand the relief and the peace on the other side when you disconnect that nuclear reactor in your chest. When you recognize I wasn't safe then, but I'm safe now. I'm telling you right now, brother, your kids will feel it, your wife will feel it, your students will feel it. You can tell everybody all day long, I love you and I'm your safe place, but man, it all changes when they feel your other safe place. That's exactly what I told my wife last night, because I love my boys, my boys are my world. And she's like, "Well, do you hug them and tell them that you love them?"

And I'm like, "Every single day, when I get home before I leave, I give them a hug, I tell them I love them, I tell them, I'm proud that they're my kids."

But then the second they do something bad, then I raise my boys and yell at them.

So I can tell them that all I want, but are my actions showing this? Or put it another way and this is going to be hard to hear, okay? I've had to hear this too, so this is the pot with a kettle here.

“When their life gets bananas are stressed, do they come running for you?”

No. Okay. That's the measure of, do I have a safe attachment with my boys, or do they have an anxious attachment? I can tell they kind of get nervous whenever they have to come there, like, you know, to tell me, "Hey, my brother did this and they come and tell me I could tell that there we go." There we go.

They're nervous. Yeah. And you've been there before as a kid, and then you feel guilty and shame that your boys are feeling that. And then it works up and it kicks up the nuclear reactor and the whole thing starts over again. Yep.

This is about you going and sitting with a professional trauma therapist and saying, "I'm going to let this set." I'm not giving my father and my childhood nervous system. I'm not carrying those cinder blocks around with me anymore. I need to set those down. And I'm telling you as a guy who's on the other side of that kind of healing to bro, everything changes.

Okay. My heart rate, my resting heart rate dropped about 10 beats a minute. Okay. When I tell you it changes at your nervous system level, how your metabolic systems operate, it changes you. But you got to go do that work.

Thanks to the call, man.

Thanks for the conversation, man.

“I would be honored if six months from now and nine months from now.”

After you spend some time with the trauma therapist, I would love to hear about how you're feeling. My guess is your kids, your sons are not going to be able to stay off of their dad. You're going to become a human jungle gym. You're going to be their safe place. And that's when we start changing our family tree.

We come back and woman asks why her doctor recommended medication and rehab when she doesn't see herself as an alcoholic. We'll be right back. Winter is over. The sun is coming out earlier and staying out longer and it's awesome. And that also means it's time to rotate the closet.

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“Let's go to Portland, Oregon, and talk to Jenna. Hey, Jenna, what's up?”

Well, few weeks back, I heard you talking to a caller about microdozing GOP ones. And now they cut back in the noise in your head.

But you had attributed it specifically to alcohol and I've never heard that before.

And I sked a little bit with my doctor and he immediately did an audit test. And I came back as high risk. Rather than even discussing GOP ones with me, he prescribed interviews and alcohol counseling. Because he said that they don't prescribe GOP ones through our insurance. But at the same time, it just like sent me into panic when that was the option that he offered.

So I just heading alcohol out completely and still having the voice in the back of my head was terrifying. Okay, so two important things here, okay. Number one, I want to make this so so clear. I am in no way shaped from refashion and medical doctor. His opinion trumps mine a thousand to one, okay?

Number two, what you just described. The way you just described your relationship with alcohol tells me you have a problem. Do you have a problem? I mean, I have a beer every day, sometimes two, sometimes three. I don't have a drink to get drunk.

I don't like being drunk. I might accidentally get drunk once a year. But I do like at the end of the day, it's my signal that the day is over. Okay.

“Why does the thought of coming up with other signals?”

Scary. Well, I started working out a couple of months ago and I worked out four days a week and I was like, "This is going to take that need to have that beer at the end of the day away." And now when I come home from the gym, I have that one beer. I have that one beer instead of two beers.

Okay, so why'd you go to the doctor?

Um, when I heard that call, I reason I've never been able to stop drinking.

I feel like it's because the voices when I skip that drink are so loud. Or when I buy less alcohol so that I don't have a beer at the end of the day. I'm counting the beers to make sure I have enough to get through the weekend. I have to ask what has been of it to cool if I go get more. Um, so the idea of not having that constant chatter in my brain.

Having that turn down, I felt like it would be easier to put space between me and alcohol. Okay. The idea of like taking an abuse and not being able to drink it all, that's so scary.

But your challenge right now is going to sound crazy.

Without alcohol.

“Your challenge is heading straight into those voices.”

Because two things are happening. One of two things is happening. Probably a mixture of both, but it's easy to just by-for-cative. Those voices may be right. Your relationships may be a mess.

You may be just running on a treadmill in your life and don't have any purpose. You may be unhealthy. You may need to really deal with some old childhood traumas. Your marriage may be way unsafe. Okay.

So here's the thing. Those voices are right.

An alcohol shuts them off.

The last thing you want to do is immediately shut off your body's alarm systems. Because you're going to take the batteries out of the alarm, but your house is going to burn down around you. And so I'm 100% with your doctor here. I don't know the like, anobuse has a whole bunch of, by the way, for those of you don't know. Anobuse is it's a medication you take that when you drink alcohol, you become violently ill.

It makes you, it makes the drink so awful for your body that you stay away. Because it's like, it's like touching a, like a, like a hot stove. I mean, it just makes you feel awful, but also a side effect. So I can't speak to anything around that, that, that, that drug.

“But I can tell you, you need to go, you need to go to a meeting.”

Okay. And you probably need to go see a professional therapist, ASAP. Okay. Because your body's trying to get your attention. And I, and you sound smart enough, and, and I don't mean that like an intelligence wise,

but you sound like a very thoughtful person. And so I want to say back to you what you told me, okay. The thought of not having beer in my fridge scares me. I count alcohol, I count beers. So that I know, right?

Yeah. That tells me that alcohol is serving a very important role in your life. And I want to get to the bottom of what it's trying to protect me from. Let me put another way. The changes you're avoiding, they're going to happen.

If you're in an unsafe marriage, if your body is still trying to solve from historic trauma, if your job is in safe, if you're operating life with no purpose, all of that ends up on the table. It just might be an attorney's office. It might be a rehab center where you're forced to go.

Or it can be you choose to take your suitcase into a counselor's office into an AA meeting and dump it out yourself. But it's coming out. I mean, I did outpatient when I was a teenager because I got caught with drugs. And that's different.

So I kind of felt like, you know, this has always been something I've had control over.

And I didn't like meetings when I was younger. Of course you didn't. You were made to go. And by the way, drugs and alcohol were solving for something when you were a teenager. Yeah. Was home chaotic, unsafe? My mom was bipolar manic depressive.

There you go. Things got really rough when I was like 13. Yeah, so they sent you to a rehab. They kicked a crutch out from under you. All right.

And then they dropped you right back in the middle of the football game and said, "Keep playing." That's cruel to a teenager. I'm not saying you let teenagers continue to use drugs and drink. It's not what I'm saying.

“But now you have to change the environment with what that makes drugs and alcohol an important tool and resource.”

Of course meetings were miserable right then, like when you were a kid. You were forced to tell. I didn't feel like I was one of them. I didn't feel like I was there for the same reason they were. And they weren't interested in being there.

And I used drugs a couple of times got caught and stopped. That's not where we are anymore. No. How old are you?

All right, we'll be.

How much of this are your terrified of what it's actually going to mean about your marriage and about potentially being lonely and about potentially having to go recreate yourself at 41 years old?

I don't know, I'm lonely right now, but I think maybe that's part of what I'm scared of is if I quit drinking, I have to free and reduce myself to my husband.

“You have to reintroduce yourself to you.”

Sometimes we're lonely because other people don't see and know us, but sometimes we're lonely because we don't let other people see and know us. Sometimes it's both. I need you to metabolize what I'm about to say, okay? Okay. You're worth the better life than this.

You're worth having peace when you walk in your front door. You're worth your husband and your home being the safest place on the planet for you.

You're worth coming home and laughing your butt off and not having to hide from your emotions in your day.

You're worth having rim sleep, which alcohol destroys. You're worth joy. You haven't had that a long, long, long time.

“How do any of the fun stuff we used to do?”

We have kids. I know, but you don't think you're worth being fun with. Your life is worth. That's part of it. I want to work two jobs and drive in the kids to all their activities and put the work out in there.

And there isn't time for fun.

But little beer at the end of the night, my little bit of fun. And if you've created a world that's the only moment you have, I get it. And I also get that being in a season when you get a little kids and you've got people run around and you've got resources or tight and you and your spouse aren't connected. You all are living separate lives in the same house.

All right. Like I get it. I totally get it. I just want to tell you. I've sat with.

I mean, I've talked to thousands of couples who have cleared the deck and said the marriage we had is over. Let's rebuild a new one. I can't tell you the number of people who have come out after rehab or stay in an impatient rehab or who have started going to meetings who get their life completely back. Can't tell you the number of people I've talked to who have said, hey, I'm not going to let my kids busyness dictate my marriage and my home. Me and my spouse, me and my partner are going to be the anchor of this place.

And y'all are going to orbit around us, not the other way around. And it changes, the responsibilities stay the same, but the ethos in the house changes. It's like going to a job where the boss is just miserable and they suck. That same work, the same job can be a place of awesomeness if your boss rules and your coworkers are awesome, right? Yeah.

But I want you to hear me say, you can't see through any of that because right now you're looking through a cloud. You're looking through a glass darkly. And that's when you've got to trust people around you to say, hey, it's time we go see somebody.

“I don't think you need to turn the voices down right now.”

I think you need to go listen to them. And right now listening to them alone, that's a tall ask. They're so loud. I know. I know.

And they have to be because you keep drowning them out. Are you worth it? Yeah. Today's day one. Yeah.

Today's day one. Right. Here's your homework assignment. I want you to before the day is over. I want you to have an appointment with an in person therapist.

And my preference for you would be if you found a trauma informed therapist. And give it two or three sessions and if you don't feel safe enough to be completely honest about your childhood, about your marriage, about your relationship with yourself and your kids. Then go find somebody else. I'm generally an over share. So that shouldn't be a problem.

Yeah, but you over share to protect that sacred six inches of space. Push them away before they can completely away. Yeah, over sharing is a mechanism. It's not honesty.

You can over share information and never share how you feel about something.

Yeah.

“That's what I mean about going and being honest.”

Until your husband, I'm going to start making some significant changes and I hope you'll come with me. And be honest with him and say, the story I'm making up in my head is you're not going to like me. And let him know if he's the only person who's ever not asked me to stop drinking. Okay. It doesn't make it tough.

Okay. So today's day one. And by the end of the day, I want you to have found a meeting. If you're a real gangster, you'll go to night. Your husband can do bed times that you'll go to night.

We're going to go early in the morning. You start your day early. Find an early meeting in the morning. We're going to start going. And it might 12 steps may not be your thing over the long period of time.

But it's not like it is in the movies. It can be a very warm and inviting kind place for people who are doing life. This is busy and fast as you are.

“Come in and say, I'm powerless to over this one.”

And I'm worth more. Your doctor is right. If anybody listening to this podcast. If I say something that's different from your doctor,

maybe get a second opinion, but listen to your physician who knows you, your blood panels,

nose medication, their license, their board certified. Listen to them over me. I'm a podcaster. But do head towards healing. I'm proud of you, Jenna.

They won. On your 30 days, I want you to call back. And we're going to celebrate you. My name is Rebecca and make a 30-day chip. Or a 60-day chip that'd be awesome.

I'm really grateful for you. Game on. We'll be right back. As you can imagine, my house is filled with all kinds of red stuff. All my hunting gear, all of my music stuff, my kids art, my wife's art.

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All right, this is for Ben, who's running the board on the show. All right, Ben, listen. I was late to the game by about a decade. I started, my son and I started, strangest things season one. About a month and a half or two months ago, we just finished season five.

I am in a deep state of mourning and just sadness.

“I felt like, if you want to see my childhood minus the upside down, that's my childhood,”

right around a bike, causing problems, walkie talkies, adventures, forts in the woods, fighting, like all of it. That was it. The one thing that was a part of my childhood was Dungeon Dragons. So shame.

Or, okay, I was kissing girls, but whatever. All right, so I need you to teach me. As concise as you can. But as passionately as you can. What does a campaign?

What does that mean? Because it looks like in this show, like each person makes up their own story. But I don't know how much of the story they make up, and then it's just left to chance

How does it work? What's a campaign?

I find that, so a campaign, I mean, the simplest way to put it is, it is a story. It's not everyone telling their own story. It's the DM, the Dungeon Master. It's kind of the story teller who has kind of their own story arc that they're going to go through. But like you said, like the dice, the decisions the player makes, like they change the story.

So it's very rare that an ending of a campaign, which is just multiple sessions of the same plot line. Right, we're going to one town, we're going to fight a dragon. The next session, we all get together. We're going to then fight this other thing because we killed the dragon.

“Now this thing is after us. So it progresses, but how do we know when the other dragon pops up?”

Is that the storyteller or the DM?

Dungeon or is it like a car gets turned over? Oh, there's another dragon. It depends on how you run it. But like some people do pin and paper, some people have maps, battle maps, right? Where you can see your characters on a map and you can say, oh, the DM will say,

Hey, you see something rustling in the bushes around this area. If you're doing just pin and paper in your brain, you can just say, I walk over there. What do I find? And the DM will walk you through what that is and creature approaches. So you keep the DM from just making it up as they go.

The DM is making it up as they go.

“It's literally, I mean, sometimes they'll have like plans. They'll say like,”

The DM had kind of this like outline that they brought to the session. And then so they know that you're going to encounter a dragon and then sometimes it just goes off the rails. Because players are like, hey, I want to go left and the DM is like, well, I thought you were going to go right. But I'm going to make up something on the spot because you chose to go left instead of what I was planning. My favorite thing about this discussion is I just watch Kelly die in real time.

Well, y'all, it's a fun game. I'm telling you. Look, I'm married. I turned out great. I played D&D, y'all. It's a fun game. I've got a job. I've got a family.

Yeah.

“But it's just, it's oral storytelling, right? It's the oldest form of entertainment.”

That's what D&D is. And it sounds like people get to participate in the story like she's your own adventure in real time. Yes. Yep. Yeah, there's an element of improv.

Oh, there's the other techno nerd pops in. And Kelly, you're sandwiched. I know. I'm having a great time with this. Okay, here's the thing.

I've spent my entire life rolling my eyes. But the stranger things kids, they did peek my interest. So I'm going to commit to a campaign at some point this year. You got to invite me over. Dude, I'll DM it. Let's go.

I can't call you a dungeon master. I'm just not there yet. I can't. Baby steps, baby steps. But thank you for sharing your expertise in your wisdom.

Any time, John. Kelly, I saw you wielding a margarita machine. We're going to need to crank that sucker up because I don't know what just happened. Love you guys, bye. (upbeat music)