How To Respond To Addicts Rationalizing Everything (Co-Dependency, Boundaries, & Sober Living)

Today, I sit down with Dr. Sarah Michaud, the host of the "Leaving Crazy Town" podcast and a clinical psychologist who specializes in addiction and codependency, to break down how substance abuse affects more than just the person using. We talk about alcoholism, cocaine, relapse, denial, enabling, sober community, and the deeper emotional pain that often drives addiction in the first place. Dr. Michaud also shares parts of her own recovery story, what led her into this field, and how her work now helps people understand both addiction and the relationships surrounding it. 

Throughout this conversation, I bring in my own perspective from working in addiction recovery and from seeing addiction up close inside my own family. We talk about how addiction impacts parents, children, marriages, work, and identity, and why so many people rationalize dangerous behavior for years before facing the truth. I also raise the issue of how culture, media, alcohol normalization, vaping, marijuana, and other modern habits continue shaping how people view addiction and sobriety. 

Dr. Michaud explains why codependency can be just as destructive as addiction itself when loved ones become trapped in cycles of enabling, rescuing, guilt, and fear. We discuss boundaries, consequences, relapse warning signs, emotional avoidance, and why isolation gives addiction more power. This episode also explores why some people replace one addiction with another, why community matters in recovery, and why facts often cut through denial better than emotion. 

If you or someone you love is battling addiction, alcoholism, codependency, or relapse, this episode offers insights and references resources for recovery, sober lifestyle tools, and healthier ways to think about healing. I emphasize the importance of hope, boundaries, and refusing to normalize self-destruction.

https://drsarahmichaud.com/

Website: https://coupleonukes.com

Exodus, Honor Your Heart, & Nulu Knives: https://www.coupleonukes.com/affiliates/

Want to be a guest on Couple O' Nukes? Send me a message on PodMatch:  https://www.podmatch.com/hostdetailpreview/1726279485588093e83e0e007

Sign Up For A PodMatch Account: https://www.joinpodmatch.com/coupleonukes

*Couple O' Nukes LLC and Mr. Whiskey are not licensed medical entities, nor do they take responsibility for any advice or information put forth by guests. Take all advice at your own risk.

Transcript

 Ladies and gentlemen, welcome back to another episode, a couple of nukes. As always, I'm your host, Mr. Whiskey, and I am still traveling post my travels in Japan, so not in my normal studio. So I apologize in advance for any lighting or audio quality that doesn't meet the normal standard, but. It's great to be traveling and I actually had an episode recently about traveling sober with Theresa Bergen who suggested the uh, person who I'm talking to today, who had reached out to me earlier, and I didn't see that message in time.

But all that to say, it's a small world, you know? And. Shockingly enough, most people don't realize how small the world is when it comes to addiction. Uh, almost everyone knows someone who is addicted or suicidal is becoming more and more common. And I always say that, but I also always say that I've had guests on the show who have overcome addiction after 30 years plus of addiction.

So it's never too late. I always put that forward and. I'm excited to get into the topic today because our guest today was looking through some of her episodes and website and saw some truly unique topics on addiction that I haven't even covered on my show, such as Sober Sex, and you know, talking about recently sober travel.

It goes to show that many of us who have not faced addiction or dealt with someone who is addicted. Uh, we don't understand the full death of how it affects every single part of your life, and so we're gonna get that done today in this conversation. We're gonna go into a lot of different topics here with Dr.

Sarah Michel. So great to have you here, and I'd love for you to tell us a little bit about yourself. Oh, thanks so much for having me. I wanna call you Mr. Whiskey. I don't know what else your name is, but don't call me Mr. Tequila. He's a different man. It's delightful to be here. My name is Dr. Sarah Micho.

I'm a clinical psychologist. I specialize in addiction and codependency, which we can get into. It's basically all about relationships, and I wrote a book called Co Crazy about my experience with addiction and codependency. I also have a little YouTube channel called Leaving Crazy Town. With my best buddy Finn.

And uh, yeah. And I like doing podcasts and talking to people about recovery and getting well and addressing challenges in our lives. And yes, addiction is everywhere. I mean, it shows no discrimination. I mean, I'm sure you just saw about Tiger Woods and plenty of celebrities. You know, it's everyone, everybody knows someone who has an addiction problem, so it's everywhere.

A hundred percent. You know, I talk a lot about suicide prevention and when I'm guessing on other shows, I often get asked a question, what are the patterns or trends behind suicide in the military? And I always have to emphasize that, you know, it doesn't matter if you're a chief, an officer, uh, newly enlisted yes.

Been in for 20 years, right? It doesn't care if you have a family or not. It doesn't discriminate, like you said. And same for addiction. Yes. We know addiction is not just alcohol abuse, but it's also drugs, sex, pornography, video games, working. We have seen addictions develop over time into newer, stronger.

Uh, vices in our lives as we yes, continue to develop and create new mediums for coping, not always positive ones. And so I want to start, of course, with your personal journey of addiction, you know, where and how that started. Looking back now, obviously a lot of us in the midst of addiction don't even know that it's started or has started.

And I want to use your look back to help a lot of people who might not realize where they are. Yeah, great question. I mean, the thing about me is, and this isn't, this isn't atypical, but I got sober at 24 years old and I am 66. So I got sober a long time ago in the eighties. And the reason I think I only used for eight years from the ages of 16 to 24, as I got into drugs, um, I think I probably could have drank for much longer.

But, um, because I start, I started to get into cocaine, which of course was huge in the eighties. I didn't realize it was still huge now, which I think it is. But, um, at the time in my life, everybody was starting to do cocaine and I. Had a lot of, um, crazy experiences. I could tell you some with cocaine, but the thing with drugs is it costs money.

And when you're trying to pay for drugs for your drug habit, then you end up doing illegal things. So then usually the law gets involved. So I've been in jail several times. I've been arrested. I had a felony at one point. I tried to rob a bank at one point 'cause I owed a Coke dealer money. So I've had, I've had a lot of.

Sanity around the drugs that probably if I was just drinking again, I could have drank longer. But it took me down really hard, and especially now there are so many drug problems with the opiates that. I mean, in a way now, and I have a 25-year-old, I don't know how old you are, but you know, I tell him often you can do drugs once now and die.

So, I mean, it's just not a good idea to get into it. And yet, tons of people, you know, my, uh, my boyfriend, uh, runs a car dealership and literally I think 90% of his. Staff had drug and alcohol problems when he started. Mm-hmm. And recently, one of the younger kids and several of the kids in their twenties have cre, addictions and freedom.

Like is sold at your local convenience store. And so, I mean, I, you know, I, it's really a serious problem now. It's available everywhere. I mean, pot stores are open everywhere. And to me, you know, I had a heroin addict say to me one time that pot was trickier to quit than heroin. And I think because it's so easily accessible and you think it's not really that bad, and yet I've had clients highly addicted to just pod.

So it is everywhere and there's lots of theories about it. I'm sure we could talk about that. You know, some people say it's genetics, some people say it's not. It's about your thinking. And I'm someone that believes there's many different kinds of addicts. I don't think everybody's the same. For me, you know, it was in my genetic line.

My mother was an alcoholic, my grandmother was an alcoholic. My gr, my uncles, I mean, it was everywhere in my history. But I've also had patients that, you know, I had a guy who retired and started drinking and became an alcoholic within a year, or someone's wife dying or. So there's lots of different kinds of addicts.

I don't think everybody's the same. The solution might be the same, but it's really about that underlying stuff, what got me into it in the first place, what makes someone pick up in the first place? And there's lots of reasons for that, right? And we've even seen some people who can drink alcohol and be fine, but their Yes, addiction to drugs is something different.

So. We do believe, especially on this show, the individualized approach, not only with Origins but with solutions. In a phenomenal recent episode with Jimmy Applegate, we went over why the 12 step system. It can be flawed for many people and how there are so many alternative solutions out there. What we consider on this show, non-traditional, uh, methods of recovery out there.

Then I have had the honor of interviewing a lot of. Unique individuals who are making a great impact through podcasting, through clinics, through different private organizations and nonprofits in terms of non-traditional addiction recovery. You know, so I think that's so important. And that goes for all medical care, you know, uh, especially with mental health.

It's something we've seen people try to copy. Cut and paste and it's not, yes. And I wanna go back to, you know, it's, it's so important understanding the origins of it. You talked about the dangers of drugs increasing nowadays, and we know a lot about fentanyl being spread around and the dangers of that.

And then also vaping, of course, the. You know, it's so interesting of, first of all, I know, especially as a military member, we get warned about this more because of the types of shops around the bases, which are vapes that are lined or contain traces of other materials that aren't normally considered the standard for vaping.

So people have to be careful about that, but also. Oh, and nicotine pouch is becoming huge and different stuff in the military, but it's so interesting. You know, I've done episodes about quitting smoking on the show because like, it's still prevalent, but we saw a huge shift in culture where, you know, when my parents went to high school, there were smoking lounges.

The teachers and students smoked together. You know, it was advertised everywhere. You could smoke on airplanes. Now you don't see commercials promoting smoking. You see commercials that are for quitting smoking with alcohol. You still have commercials pushing forward alcohol. It's interesting. Now with vaping, they consider it so different yet so similar to smoking.

There are ads pushing the promotion of that, and I just wonder if we're gonna see a shift. Uh, maybe my children are children's children where they're like, wow, you know, you used to be able to, well, you're not even really allowed to vape in most places. You're not supposed to at least, uh, outside of days and day areas.

But they're gonna be like, you used to vape and, and you could get it in vending machines and at stores and now you can't. And so it's interesting to see how. Cultural trends play, you know, we've seen the attempt to outlaw alcohol in the past and how that resulted, and so there's, there's a lot that goes into it.

And of course, being safe is the number one concern for, uh, anyone doing this, especially as parents. You know, a lot of parents unfortunately, have had to face the harsh reality that you hinted at earlier. And I, I'll, I'll say it, very straightforward. Uh, there are daughters going into prostitution or other sexual services in exchange for money or drugs.

Yep. And I think for any parent, that is the biggest fear, uh, that is extremely dangerous, uh, extremely harmful mentally and physically to our young women. And so addiction is, like we mentioned in the very beginning, so much beyond just doing a substance. And you can't stop. It's, you mentioned codependency is super important.

We'll get into that. And it also, it affects your social relationships, the way you show up in the workplace, the way you show up at home. And it may not be, like you said right away. I've had interviews with people on the show who were functioning alcoholics in a high stress performance work environment for years before they were called.

And with remote work has actually seen a drastic rise in addiction because now people can get away with being more inebriated on the job or whatever it is. Yep. Yep. No, absolutely. You've said so many great things. I mean, it is everywhere and it really doesn't matter what it is. Uh, human beings, for whatever reason, can become addicted to anything.

I mean, the phones now, and like you said mm-hmm. You know, video games, um, all of it. And the tricky thing is, you know, and I agree. I mean, you know, when I got sober in 84, there weren't a lot of options for, for a cer, you know, for many different treatments. And now there are, there are different communities online.

There's tons of different people starting. You know, I saw a guy this morning in Boston that has. A gym, a sober gym, and he's like really into fitness for recovery. So, I mean, whatever works is my, is my thought. The trouble is, you know, it is, in my view, it's a mental illness in the sense of, it's one of the few illnesses that the main component is, it tells you you don't have it.

So denial is literally the main com co, the main component of addiction, and that's why so many people die from it. Because I've known plenty of people that drank for years and yet thought they were okay and then eventually got cirrhosis and died. I mean, it's similar to bipolar in the sense of when someone's manic, they don't know they're manic and it, and that's what addiction is like.

You're the last one to know. Or when you do know, you're terrified to stop. And addicts, you know, rationalize, deny, minimize. I only drink on weekends. You know, romanticized, oh, it was so great back in the day, even though, you know, 10 years later they're losing everything. So it's a certain way of thinking that keeps you using, and that's what makes it so tricky.

Right. The rationalization part we've discussed in detail on the show, my father and other gentlemen who have been on the show as addicts, sharing about, you know, my father's a great example. Uh, there's always some kind of holiday and, and, you know, nowadays there's a holiday every day. You could look it up every day.

It's National Donut Day today, so I'm gonna drink, you know, it's a, you know, so I've, I've seen that before, or, uh, I would call it downplaying, for lack of better words. It's just vodka. It's not tequila or it's just, um, whiskey. It's not whatever, or it's just the biggest one I hear. Yes. I don't wanna name any specific brands, but we've seen a lot of these drinks that are only like 5% or 3%.

Right. They're more like chill drinks that you have. Right. But if you're having multiple of those, and that actually brings back a point I wanted to mention earlier. You talked about the abundance of drugs and types. I also forgot to mention cough syrup. You mentioned, uh, different pharmaceuticals and, and medications available easily.

We've seen a huge rise in people abusing cough syrup and adjacent, uh, chemicals and formulas. So, uh, terrible news there. And so we know the rationalization. Like you said, there's always an excuse and some people don't even get afraid when they realize they're in it. Like I've seen people. Who have overdosed go back to using.

I've seen people who have been in the hospital and had liver failure, organ failure, and continue to drink even knowing it is a death sentence. Yes. On the other hand, I have seen some amazing stories where people like sobered up like, oh my goodness, I almost died. Like, I need to get my life together. Yes.

And so it, you know, it really is individual. Now you got sober at 24, you mentioned, uh, kind of like got crashed out and burned out of it because of. Finances and other stuff from there. Where does your journey kind of shape? Well, I ended up like just loving recovery. I mean, part of the thing that really helps with people getting sober is community.

I'm sure you've heard other people upset this, right? Having relationships, whether it's a group, whether it's a gym, whether it's, it doesn't even matter what it is, but as long as you have. People to reality check with because that's the problem also with addiction. There's a saying we have where it loves to get you alone because then your mind can start.

So it's really about having other people in your life that you can check in with. And so I got really involved in, um, with other folks, and then I decided to go back to college. So I went to college and then graduate school and just. Thought I would specialize in addiction. And yet the interesting thing is, I was talking to someone earlier about this.

Just because you put the booze and drugs down doesn't mean everything's gonna be great. I mean, all the issues that were there before you picked up in the first place are still there. And then, you know, as a friend of mine once said to me, yes, now you're not in denial about the drinking, but you can deny or rationalize or minimize anything else.

So people get addicted to relationships. They might, you know, I had someone who picked up gambling, you know, someone else who got addicted to sex, someone else who started shopping all the time. So. It can be, you know, also you can just be switching addictions and still not dealing and addressing with the underlying stuff, which really is what it's all about.

It's getting to, geez, what is the reason I'm needing this relief? You know, we call it we, you know, we often refer to ourselves as relief seeking missiles. Why do I need relief? What am I trying to get relief from? So that's really the question in therapy. Is, you know, once you put down the substance, what's happening with me?

What am I remembering? What am I angry about? What am I in pain about? What previous traumas have I had? You know, what's gone on in my life that that numbing myself has become the solution? And that's really the question. A hundred percent. Not only are the issues still there most of the time, a majority of them might be worse because of your behavior during your time of addiction.

Absolute, absolutely. I completely agree that you can get rid of the addiction and then downplay all the problems. Or again, we've seen, especially physically, uh, the replacement of alcohol with sugar. You know, a lot of sugar users have done whole episodes dedicated to just that topic alone, so I won't break it down too much, but we've seen that is very common.

And one thing I wanna put forward, of course, is. Yes, community for addiction recovery, but community with caution because you can meet great people who boost you up and hold you accountable, but you can also meet people who are likely to push you into relapse. Part of getting out of addiction is reforming the people around you, many people whom were enabling your addiction or a bad influence in your life.

So I would say community with caution. Uh, we've seen. You know, they call it what the 13th step, uh, is when you date someone at AA and and relapse. Now, sometimes people have great relationships from that, but other times we've seen, uh, you know, sometimes it's like fire and gasoline. So I would say community with caution is really important.

But I agree that isolation is very damaging in addiction because it's just you and your addiction, you know? One of the gentlemen I interviewed, his book cover was kind of like this, him sitting alone, and it was, he had a separate personality that was just his like addiction talking to him. You know, so I, I think it's really a great analogy.

And you know, Dr. Brian La Quinnan, who was on the show, he talks about it like a demon doing pushups in the corner. Like it's always waiting for you. Any chance it gets for you to go back towards it, it will attack you. You know, you can't really kill it. You can just kind of lock it away. And we've seen people relapse after a year, 10 years, 20 years.

Uh, people in their seventies, 80 nineties, you know, like you said earlier. It doesn't matter. It's, it's there. It doesn't matter what age you are or how much training you've done. Right. You know, some people, just as soon as they get a single drop or a taste, it resets everything. Yes. And that's not always the case, but it can be.

And I think when it comes to addiction recovery, you want to be as conservative and as cautious as you can be. Got it. Yeah. I mean. Absolutely. Yes. And yes. And, and really it's getting down to those causes and conditions, you know what I mean? Like what, you know, that saying relapse happens way before the relapse happens.

Hmm. Well, what, you know, I've had clients come in that, um, relapsed and when we look at it and kind of back it up to when did it first start? Geez, they had a fight with their wife, or they had a fight with their boss, or they got resentful over, you know, somebody at work or, and the thing is, if you don't kind of resolve ongoingly what's happening in your life and your underlying feelings, whether it's anger or fear, or pain or sadness, or grief is a big one.

I think I said fear, um, it's gonna come out in some way. So someone who's not addressing their anger at the wife might have an affair. Someone who's not addressing their grief might escape through, uh, addictively watching Netflix or whatever. It's gonna come out somewhere. Hopefully you, you hope they don't go back to the substance, but it's not atypical.

You know, I've had someone sound great in my office and then leave and go to the liquor store. And I'm like, what ha, you know, what happened between now and then? Well, the thinking takes over, or they couldn't deal with some feeling state happening. So, you know, addiction is, uh, sobriety can be tricky. I don't wanna say addiction would be tricky, but meaning when you first get sober, I mean, when I first got sober, I didn't know what a feeling was.

I'd have, I'd go to a therapist office and I'd say, wow, I think I might be angry with my dad. But I had talked to my dad two weeks before. So a lot of times in those first few years of recovery, you're, you might be having a feeling, but you may not even be aware of it for a couple of weeks. So getting more in touch with what we think and feel is really what recovery is all about.

So those underlying feelings aren't directing our behavior. That's really important. Right. And that's part of the reason why they say make amends so long as it doesn't hurt the other person. And I think one of the most difficult things is, at least I know with my father, when his addiction was very peaking, you know, he didn't even remember half the stuff he did or said, you know?

Right. And we were left to try to deal with that and then also explain it to him. And I know during the peak of his addiction, it was like talking to a brick wall that was also a treadmill because the conversation just loops back around and around. Yes. And. It does feel like you're in crazy Town to, you know, reference your work, which I want to get into here.

At what point of your journey did you come up with the idea of Crazy Town and kind of, I guess, revisiting where you once were and wanting to bring people to there to also get them out of there? I mean, crazy Town really refers to in my book code crazy. It's because so many people in sobriety who are in relationships would come into my office and say.

I don't know he said this, but it makes me feel crazy. And so I started to think about codependency, which is really, it started with, you know, bill Wilson's wife, Lois in AA in the thirties, um, talking about a woman living with a male alcoholic. But over the years and through the eighties and you know, p Melody and Melody Beatty.

Claudia Black and all these, you know, Jonathan Bradshaw, all these people who wrote books on codependency and being an adult child, growing up in an alcoholic family, and all the consequences, you know, we really started to look at how does growing up in addiction or recovering from addiction impact your relationships?

And impact how you see yourself. So the reason we call it code crazy is, for example, I remember coming home from school one day and my mother was passed out in the living room, and later on I remember saying to her, geez, it seems like you were drinking. And she said, I wasn't drinking. And when that parent says that to a child, the child might say.

Huh, maybe she wasn't. It starts to create this doubt within our own minds and hearts about our reality. Hmm. And that's what we call crazy town. So the thing about codependency recovery is if you're dating an addict or you're living with an alcoholic, very often what you say that you see, the person will deny.

Or they'll actually blame you. You know, you'll say, geez, honey, it seems like you've had a couple of too many tonight. And they'll say, well, it's because you're such a, you know, controlling person. Like they'll blame you. Right? So part of getting out of codependency, which is. My focus is external. My focus is on what you are thinking, feeling, or doing, rather on what I think and feel.

And the problem with that is. I am basing what I think about myself on how the world responds to me rather than what I truly believe. And the problem is some people are gonna like us and some people aren't, and we can't control that. We can only control what we are doing so very often. When someone gets sober, their relationships are based on their early upbringing, and so maybe they grew up in an alcoholic home and now they're trying to date, but all those old issues are coming out in their relationships.

That's what happens in codependency recovery. We're looking at, geez, can I identify my feelings or can I identify their feelings? You know, I have couples come in. Where the woman say stereotypically is more interested in the husband getting sober than in their health, you know? Mm-hmm. And the husband may not even wanna get sober.

And whose fault, right? Whose, whose problem is that? Really, it's the woman's, because if your partner doesn't wanna get sober, it's really up to you to figure out what do you want? And what do you need? And that's really where a lot of what I wrote about came from. I had a husband who relapsed after 15 years of recovery.

And my life blew up. Yeah. And I had a PhD. I was sober for 30 years. I'd been going to Al-Anon for 20 years, and it was hard for me and I thought, how do people figure this stuff out? You know? So yeah, it can be very tricky. Recovery from codependency is almost more difficult because when you recover from addiction, it's like you put the substance down.

When you're recovering from codependency, you really have to look at yourself and start setting boundaries and relationships and changing your behavior and relationships. And that's not easy 'cause those patterns have been going on since you were a kid. Thank you for sharing about your husband, and I can relate to that pain and even to the woman you mentioned in the stereotypical scenario.

As someone who I am available as an addiction recovery coach, I work a lot in addiction recovery. Yet my father, my number one patient, uh, is still an addiction, you know, and. We have the least impact on the people closest to us when it comes to addiction, unfortunately. And secondly, what you're talking about is it's one of the most painful things, at least that I've experienced, to watch someone you love and to care about them more than they care about themselves, to want sobriety for them more than they want.

I mean, I've been in that position for years now, you know? And it is very painful because it makes you feel powerless and. Because of that, a lot of people end up as enablers, which is a conversation we can get into. Now, I stopped being enabler, but I did so in a balanced way, you know, because a lot of people will say, well then I just have to cut off the relationship.

What I developed was, uh, what I call, like a lot of people say, forgive and forget, you know, that's what they say. Most people don't actually do it. Right, and it's dangerous. A lot of people then will actually live out forgiven, resent. And they actually just resent it, hold over their heads. I developed, I mean, I didn't invent it, but I like to say forgive and protect, and that is forgiveness with remembrance, but not resentment and creating boundaries to move forward.

So with my father's addiction, you know, it got to the point where I, I love you dad, but I'm not gonna enable your addiction. So, uh, you know, I don't drink with you. If you're not sober enough to a degree, I'm not gonna come see you. I've had to cancel my birthday plans with him. I've had to cancel holidays.

I had to abandon him on Thanksgiving night because of his addiction. And it is painful, uh, but it's not as painful as enabling them and making them worse. You know, we can only control. What we can control, as you mentioned, which is our feelings and our input to their addiction. Uh, but again, to be in that position of watching someone you love, killing themselves, that's what they are.

They are killing themselves. And it's frustrating when I'm like, dad, why can't you just sit down and talk about what's really bothering you? And even if someone does in addiction, talk to you about what's bothering them, typically it's only the surface version. Or it's not the full truth, my dad and many addicts practice, uh, lying by a mission or, uh, not withholding parts of the truth.

Right. You know, they think if, I know, my mom used to ask my dad, are you drinking? And he just wouldn't answer. So he didn't lie, you know, so there's, or he would tell part of the truth, well, I drank but I only drank X, Y, z if it leaves out A, B, C, you know? So, yeah. That, that codependency can develop in a lot of ways.

You talked about the influence of the parents on the children in what a lot of, you know, not to use now, it's like a, a trendy word, but gas, lighting and narcissism both play into addiction very well, and that's kind of what you're talking about is the denial, spinning things around onto you, blaming their drinking on someone else to manipulate how they feel.

A lot of addictions create toxic relationships, but also. Just. Children, as a lot of experts on my show have said are sponges for information, for experiences. And some men I've had on my show, they thought because of their father's behavior that all men just drank beer after work. Like you had to do it like it was a ritual.

Like it was like genetic, you know, like men have to, they work a job, they have to come home and drink beer or that if they're a mother, they have to drink wine, you know, to use very. Common examples and so how we teach alcohol to our children. Uh, one, it's really important to have conversations with them, which I don't think parents have very often or effectively, but also our actions speak louder than our words when it comes to that.

You know, a lot of people will see, and that goes into what I mentioned at the very beginning. Commercials and media depicting like a lot of, um, especially for like weed nowadays because it's been made so available and some people will use the terms, oh, it's just a plant, it's not a drug. Um, I commentary on that for a different episode.

You know, a lot of media depicts it as it's not a party until you're smoking or it's not a party until you're drinking. I've had people on my show. If they went out and they said they weren't gonna drink, people said, do you have a problem with addiction? Or Why aren't you drinking? Why are you a, you know, a loser to use a, a weak word, right?

But that's what it is. There's a negative stigma around it. And then they say, oh, well at least you smoke, right? And it's like, no, I don't smoke. Why? Why do I have to do one of those? It becomes such a standard. I blame media for a lot of high school and college drinking because a lot of shows and movies will easily show underage drinking and parties and they encourage it.

Right. They encourage it, whether they intend to or not, which I think they do 'cause they get money out of it. But that's the sad reality of it, is, you know, the adults in our lives, whether it's family, friends, mentors, or these people online are really influencing and shaping our beliefs about alcohol. Uh, you know, when we're too young to even understand it.

Yes, absolutely. You said so many great things. I wanted to write some stuff down I didn't wanna forget. Um. Yeah, I mean, you're absolutely right. The, the thing about alcoholism and addiction is it really ruins families. It causes great pain. It causes great pain in kids, in partners. And you said it. We are powerless over our relatives, our loved one's addiction.

The trouble with enabling behaviors, and you know, this is what I feel so passionate about with the codependency, is very often, you know, the codependent woman would come in with the husband or whatever and she'd be the victim because she have suffered through 15 years of her husband's alcoholism, blah, blah, blah.

And I'm not saying she isn't victimized, but I also wanna say. She makes choices. Mm-hmm. And what I tried to do with, um, my work was say, look, both people have a part in this. They're different parts. So, um, you know, the, the thing about enabling is it doesn't work. I mean, the thing about codependency is we live in this delusion.

That if I focus on my dad or my son or my husband and I try to fix or change or save them or control them, they're gonna get better. But it's really not even about that. What it is about is. I'm trying to fix or change or save them because I feel uncomfortable. It's not even about them. It's about me. And so when I bring it back to me, then I can get some power and some agency about, okay, what's best for me is ultimately what's best for them.

So if I have a mom, my mom was an alcoholic, if I have a mother who. You know when I go over there, I drink with her. 'cause I'm afraid to set a boundary that's not gonna help her. It's not gonna help me. If I say to her mom, which I did similar to you, I said, I can't speak with you at night. I can talk to you in the morning on the phone.

Mm-hmm. Right, but you're usually under the influence After five o'clock, she would've feelings about it and get angry, but that's about her. That's nothing to do with me. That's about her manipulation, her upset. So when I take care of myself. It helps both of us. And that's the really tricky part when I don't focus on how am I gonna not participate in this person's addiction, I'm really making it worse.

And, and that's the real tragedy is not only did they, did they get worse because I haven't set a limit. I get worse because when I'm neglecting my own needs and dismissing myself, I get resentful, I get anxious, I start having mental issues. I might start a substance. It doesn't help either person. And so often when someone finally ask someone to leave or says, I'm not gonna date you anymore, they end up not always.

Finally having a consequence for their behavior and they, they have more of a chance of getting sober than if I don't do that. So, I mean, I feel really passionate about not enabling people. And the thing is, what you said, the problem is, it's a pattern of behavior and it's scary because people believe if I set a limit, say with my child, they might die.

And you know what? That's true. If I say to them, you need to leave, they might leave and they might overdose. But the thing is that's not because I asked them to leave, it's because they picked up a drug. It's got nothing to do with me asking them to leave. You know, I've had parents say, um, well, I'm just gonna let them use in the house.

Well, and then a kid died in the basement. Mm-hmm. So it, it's like. Enabling doesn't help anybody. It's not what you do that makes the addict do anything. It's you are doing it for you. And ultimately we hope it'll help the addict. But it's codependency, by the way, isn't just with addicts or alcoholics. We can be codependent with anybody.

Mm-hmm. Very often with parents and children. And that's a whole other episode. 'cause that's also right in relationships. Yeah. And relationships, I mean, over functioning mothers these days. And you know, I read this great quote and it said, if you keep packing your child's backpack, they're gonna start believing they can't do it.

And that's really to me. The real saying of enabling. And it can be packing your kids' backpack and can be calling your husband's boss 'cause they're drunk. It can be anything. Let people have their own losses and consequences because you're not doing them any favors by saving them. Right. And a former guest on the show actually spoke about this in terms of a pain tolerance that addicts have a much higher pain tolerance for consequences than, uh.

You know, people who are not addicted do, and what she meant by that, which we've kind of discussed already, is. We've seen addicts get DUIs, go to jail, go to prison, whatever it is, lose uh, relationships, lose their job and still continue to use. She said, but you need them to rock bottom to come back. And I like a Ryan Penley man up, sober up.

He talked about addiction recovery as archery. He said the, the best part he feels, at least in his perspective from what he went through was that. The further down rock bottom he went, the stronger the force of recovery was for him, at least from going to nothing to success. He said, look at it like pulling a draw stick, not intentionally.

Right? Don't be like, okay, let me rock bottom myself so hard. I sprint to the top. That's not how it works, right? But, uh, you know, I think it is. That pain tolerance is so high, we need to let them face our the consequences. But again, it's our nature as good people, right? At least what we think is being good to protect one another.

Yes. You know? And so I think it is such a difficult position to be in, especially as a parent, you know, so hard. So many parents would die for their children or killed for their children, right? So letting them face the consequences. And it's hard to, I think, with drinking and drugs because it's not just their lives.

They could get behind the wheel and kill other people. Absolutely. And I think that's the scariest part. But again, that's not on, at the end of the day, it's, it's their choice. Right. And I think that a lot of the research, unfortunately, a lot of the conversations of addiction are pushing this idea that, you know, it's not the addict's fault or choice.

And this was actually a disagreement on my show. 'cause I had a gentleman say it was not a moral decision. But the gentleman chose to start consuming massive amounts of call syrup because he said, I knew it would get me where I needed to be faster than drinking a couple beers. That's a moral decision, you know, that right there.

So, I mean, I know it's a huge debate topic between genetics and environmental factors. Uh, but at the end of the day, you know, we choose to drink and do drugs, right? I'm not saying that people don't get tricked or traced. I've had people on the show who. Uh, someone gave them something and didn't tell them what was in it, you know, and that's, but that goes back to this has been an issue for a long time.

Roofing, right. We get that, uh, education pretty young, and that goes for not just open drinks at a bar, but anything. I mean, I'm very selective nowadays about what I eat and drink from anyone, even close friends and family at parties. Right. You know, like I have to ask every party I go to. Are these brownies brownies?

Or are they. Brownies. You know, like that's the number one concern. Like I don't trust no brownies anymore. You know, uh, people put all kinds of stuff in them nowadays, so it's just I bet. Really sad. And, um, I want to get into your website on its own landing page. It's pretty extensive, but if you click to the sober curator, I mean it talk about a lot of stuff right there.

I'd love to unpack that. 'cause I think this is a huge treasure trove and plethora of resources for people. Yeah, I mean, the sober curator is amazing. It's an online sober magazine, but it's really a sober lifestyle magazine. Um, Elise who, Elise Bryson, who started it, you know, again, she's had, um, interviewed tons of people and articles on lots of people, and she has no perspective on what's the best way to get sober.

It's really about having a great. Sober life. In fact, this is a t-shirt of hers, and on the back it says something like, drinking doesn't look good or never looks so bad, or something like that because she's got these, you know, these mottos. And so we do a bunch of reviews of all kinds of, um, literature, books, movies, TV shows.

There are reviews on everything podcasts. Um, and then just articles on mental health, articles on travel, articles on sobriety and sports o articles on, um, different, um, na beers and wines. I mean, it's really amazing articles on codependency. I wrote an article called The Golden Bachelorette on Dating in my sixties.

I mean, there's everything on there so anybody could check it out and find something they would relate to. It's really a great resource for anybody looking for recovery. Absolutely. And I have a website just on codependency and, uh, all the podcasts I've done, and I've been on, uh, a channel called Therapy in a Nutshell, which is a huge, you know, YouTube channel.

And I've done some videos with her on, uh. Codependency, anxiety, anger, the ninth step. So that's another resource if people are looking for some, uh, you know, just YouTube stuff that's all amazing. And you mentioned, you know, dating in your sixties. Uh, what website link do we click to find your profile for that?

Yeah, I mean that's, I think the article, if you type in sober curator, the Golden Bachelorette, you will find the article. Yeah, I mean, it's a great article and it's funny, I mean, look, I've had a lot of experience. I dated a lot in my sobriety, so, um, yeah, that's a great article. If you go to my website, there's links to a bunch of different things, so yeah.

Yeah, absolutely. And the channel, we talk about a lot on the Leaving Crazy Town Channel, anything codependency, a lot of things, addiction, but a lot of it is, we tell stories, funny stories from our own experiences. So, uh, anybody can look that up at leaving Crazy Town with Finn and Sarah. Right. And these funny stories are not to glamorize or encourage drinking or drugs, but not at all to build some relatability, of course.

Absolutely. No, we definitely do not. Yeah, we don't promote drinking or drugging. Absolutely not. Right. And so like you mentioned, your website has a ton of great information. I think this episode has had a lot of great insights in it as well. What would be your final message to everyone as we close off here?

You know, I would say anybody can get sober and anybody can heal from codependency. To me, I always say what you need is willingness. And the other thing I would use is when we do interventions with people, it's always about the facts. So if you are trying to figure out if you have an addiction problem or a friend is trying to figure this out, or you have a codependency issue, I would list the facts because.

The thing is facts don't lie. And when you do interventions with people, typically when you get the family together, you don't have people getting like super emotional and saying, oh, I wish you would stop drinking. You have someone say, dad. You forgot to pick me up at school three days last week. So you stick with facts.

And facts usually get through to people with an addiction problem. Feelings don't. Facts do. So if you're struggling with a relationship, I do the same thing. Write down the facts. 'cause again, we can rationalize anything. I gotta give you this quick example. I had a client who said he was sober. He was three months sober and he was gonna go to a wedding on a weekend, and he came in the following week and, uh, said he remained sober.

And then during, like in the middle of the session, he had said he had a beer. And I was like, uh, Scott, you know, stop what? I, I thought you had said you got through the wedding and you were sober. And he goes, Sarah, beer and wine aren't alcohol. So, you know, that's a very common, it's why that's a very common one I've heard.

Yes. And so that's what I mean though, by denial and rationalization, we can deny and rationalize anything. So you need, I would ask, you know, try to ask for help from someone who knows something. Call Mr. Whiskey. You know me. My email's on my website. You can always email me if you want some reality. Um, it's really, you are worth it, you know?

And the funny thing is, when I worked at this pretty well known psych hospital around here, the people that I thought were gonna remain sober and worked their butt off in treatment weren't always the ones that did. Mm-hmm. Sometimes it was the people that really didn't even seem like they were into it.

And you know what? They surprised me 15 years later when I run into them, so. Anybody can stop drinking and drugging. It's really just caring enough about yourself and having a tiny bit of willingness. Amen to that. It's never too late. Yeah, and I know I'm one of the only family members left who has hope in my father, and I think it's really important for us to have hope in them because oftentimes, absolutely, they don't have hope in themselves and.

You talked about isolation and sometimes just our hope in being there, even with boundaries is so much more than keeping them alone. You talked about rationalization. Yes. We've seen political agendas, genocide. We've seen a lot of things rationalized and a lot of addicts on my show have rationalized the idea of it's better to have a few drinks before I go into court than to show up shaky and with withdrawals and you know, I, it's.

People can rationalize anything like you said. And so I think it's really important to approach it with logic, which is sometimes hard to get through to an addict, but I think it is really important. Nowadays we see a huge culture emphasizing feelings matter more than facts, but you know, at the end of the day.

Facts are important and rigid, and they, uh, you know, will get us to where we need to be. I want everyone to check out your website, like you mentioned, ton of great resources. I think one of the amazing things is like we mentioned, there are so many ways to recover now. So if you're listening to this and you said, but AA failed me, or I didn't want to be, uh, with aa, then start light with podcasts or articles.

There's a lot of things and tools and resources out there to help sobriety. And I wanna share, uh, Bible court as well. Uh, it, I think it's an amazing one that says, wine is a mocker and beer is a brawler. Whoever is led astray by them is a fool, fool being morally flawed person. And uh, yeah, it says right there, you know, wine and.

Beer do count. Alcoholics always know the percentage of drinks, and it's not a game of percentage. All alcohol is alcohol, right? Just like any amount of radiation exposure increases your, uh, chance for cancer, right? If someone told you you had one self cancer or 20, it doesn't matter what percentage, right?

It is dangerous in killing you. Same with alcohol and drugs. Don't try to rationalize it by numbers, right? Every chance you're taking is a percentage chance of losing your life, not just with phys physical death, but spiritually and everything around you. So Dr. Sarah Micho, I'm so glad to host you. It's an honor to host you and to know that there are so many people out there trying to, you know, help people leave this crazy town in this crazy world.

Yes. You got it. A pleasure to be here. Thank you so much. Thank you for having me.