Catholic Sobriety Podcast

Speaker 1 0:00

Welcome to the Catholic Sobriety podcast , the go-to resource for women seeking to have a deeper understanding of the role alcohol plays in their lives , women who are looking to drink less or not at all for any reason . I am your host , christy Walker . I'm a wife , mom and a joy-filled Catholic , and I am the Catholic Sobriety coach , and I am so glad you're here . Alright , so today I am really excited because I have Candace Platter here as my guest .

Speaker 1 0:36

She is an addictions therapist in private practice , where she specializes in working with loved ones of those struggling with addiction in her family addiction counseling and therapy program . In her 36 years of recovery from opioid addiction , candace has learned that overcoming addiction is a family condition . Everyone in the family is affected and everyone needs to heal . The results Candace achieves have been astounding . Not only has her success led to a waiting list of clients , but she is a go-to leader in the field of addictions . Candace now works with her team , helping both the families and addicts break the devastating cycle of addiction for good . Thank you so much for being here , candace .

Speaker 2 1:32

Thanks for having me , hi , everyone .

Speaker 1 1:35

So I would just like you to go ahead and begin by telling us a little bit about your story and the work you do .

Speaker 2 1:44

Well , I'll nutshell it a bit . Back in the early 70s I was on a cross-country trip from I'm in Vancouver , canada , but I was in Calgary at the time . But it was . We were going from Calgary to Maryland in a VW van with all our possessions in it , and we stopped for lunch and right after lunch I became violently ill out of the blue and we thought it was food poisoning . But it because it had those symptoms . But it never got better , not for a really long time .

Speaker 2 2:34

So at that point what I had was Crohn's disease , that which is an inflammatory bowel disease , very difficult and kind of a devastating painful disease to have . But the doctors didn't know that . They really didn't . It was a new disease . They didn't know what to do . They did they told me it was all in my head which it was not . And because they didn't know what to do , they just kept prescribing medications for me , medications like codeine and morphine and demoral and valium and all the things that are addictive in the system . So , just like anybody else's body , my body became addicted to these substances and that started me on a 15-year opioid addiction . We didn't even know I had Opioids are and valium and alcohol which I used , and pot , which I used . All of those substances are depressants in the human system .

Speaker 2 3:45

So if you fast forward about 15 years , I reached quite a devastating bottom of being so depressed . I had no idea what was going on with me . I had no idea about addiction . I didn't know anything about it . I just kept getting more and more prescriptions over the years . You know , I was actually suicidal and I wasn't sure that I wanted to live anymore . I mean , not only is this disease a really painful one to have , but emotionally I was just a mess . So so I I remember a night I don't I will probably never forget it and I don't think I want to forget it because it was . It was the bottom when I was standing in my living room and then , one hand , I had a bottle of pills that had so many pills right at home . I had a bottle of pills that I was seriously considering swallowing , and in the other hand , I had my phone and I wasn't sure whether I was going to kill myself or reach out for help . I really wasn't sure , but I ended up putting the bottle of pills down . I remember thinking to myself well , I can swallow these later , but I'll , I'll reach out right now and I can do that later , you know .

Speaker 2 5:16

So I called the Vancouver Crisis Line and somebody on the other end who ever answered basically saved my life , because they were so I don't know if it was a man or a woman , but they were so respectful with me and really listened to me . I heard my pain and and really encouraged me to get some help . And so that's what I did and I signed myself with , with doctors approval , I signed myself into the psych ward of a hospital here . I was there for about a month and I needed to be there because I wasn't sure if I had my clothes and my car keys . What was I gonna do , you know ? So it was .

Speaker 2 6:04

While I was in there I started getting some counseling , I started getting some help and I was also introduced to 12 step programs because some a couple of people who were there were going to those across the street at the nurses residence every day at noon . So I started tagging along and I started going to narcotics anonymous and I would just sit and weep through the whole meeting because I was still so depressed and people would come up and hug me like big bikers with tattoos and leather and chains and they'd come up and they'd give me a bear hug and they'd say , keep coming back , keep coming back . So I kept going back and I went to meetings for about 10 years before I stopped doing that , which we might want to talk about later . But , and you know , one day at a time turned into close to 36 years . It'll be 36 years in July and I could not imagine ever that my life would be as good as it is . I still have Crohn's . It's still difficult . It's much better because I take good care of myself . Now I know what to do . But you know , most people have something they deal with , and that one's mine , and life just goes on . And so to be able to give back like you and I were talking before we started the show about giving back and about , you know , wanting to help other people in recovery and in addiction , yeah , it's just the most amazing journey ever .

Speaker 2 7:50

So I was about three years clean when I decided that I wanted to work in the recovery and the addiction field . So I started looking for a job . It took me about three years to be ready to work . I kind of didn't know my own name for a while , coming off all those drugs . But so I worked for 16 years in Vancouver's downtown Eastside , which is the lowest income area in Vancouver and it's where most of the addicts , alcoholics , homeless people with mental health are , and I loved doing the work . I didn't always like being in the downtown Eastside it's a scary place , but I loved . I loved the work and I knew that that's what I wanted to do . So I did that for a lot of years and then I went into private practice .

Speaker 2 8:49

But while I was , while I was working down there , what started to happen was that the family members of the clients I was seeing started to call me . Like this wasn't something that I reached out for or looked for , it just fell in my lap , kind of like you know . They would call me and they would say we just don't know what to do . We're at our which end . We love them , we hate them . We don't know what to do , what do we do ? And I didn't know what to tell them . I had no idea . But I started to see them as clients and I heard the stories and I heard what they were doing and I heard what they were not doing and I started to get a fairly good idea of what needed to change , and so that's how my work with families got started .

Speaker 1 9:41

I love that , so I noticed that too . Like when I give talks and I tell my story , it's the family members who come up and talk to me afterward and they're like either they have questions or they thank me for sharing my story because it gives them hope or you know whatever it is . So , yeah , I can totally see how you were . You know how that just came about within your story . But there's something else . Thank you , first of all , for sharing your story . I think that a lot of people listening probably could resonate with certain aspects of it , and I appreciate you sharing that day when you had the phone in your hand and the pills in your hand because you reached out for help . You made that choice and you were met with love and compassion and deep listening , it sounds like , and which is what you needed at the time , and so it sounds like that is something that you really seek to provide as well for your client and clients and client families .

Speaker 2 10:52

Absolutely . And you know I mean without compassion , without that kind of feeling of love for these people who are suffering so much , we really can't help . But we need to be able to have boundaries around doing that and we need to teach people how to have boundaries as well in working with the addicts that they love . Yeah , and I don't know that that bottle of pills called my name for a long time . But I thought I maybe try something different first and see .

Speaker 2 11:29

And the thing with families is the thing with working with families is that there's such a gap in service for families . It's getting a tiny bit better now because people are starting to understand that families need to be part of this . But for about 30 years of working in this field with families , I was sort of a lone voice in the wilderness saying we've got to involve the families in this . Without that , you know , the addicts won't stay in recovery . Many of them won't stay in recovery , won't go into recovery . So you know there's so much help for addicts out there . You know there's detoxes and treatment centers and counseling and all kinds of stuff out there for themselves help groups very , very little still for the families , right .

Speaker 1 13:23

And that is the main reason that I wanted to have you on my podcast , because I just know there's so many people that are listening that are seeking that advice , that information . So I thank you so much for being here . So let's jump in here to some questions . So could you tell me what some practical strategies

Strategies for Supporting Recovery Without Enabling

Speaker 1 13:45

or steps that you know families can take to help provide ongoing support to their loved one who is in recovery , without enabling their unhealthy behaviors ?

Speaker 2 14:02

Okay , well , you've kind of uncorrupt a few bottles here , no pun intended , because what I saw when I started to work with families was the enabling that they were doing , and so if we could talk for just a minute about what the difference is between enabling and actually helping . So enabling is when you're doing something for somebody else that they can do for themselves and that they should be doing for themselves . And when families enable the addicts they love , they basically keep them stuck in addiction . Or if they're in recovery , they keep them kind of stuck in that entitled place of okay , well , I might be in recovery , but I expect a whole lot of you family , you know , and that's not a good place for any addict to be no-transcript .

Speaker 2 15:07

The reason that many loved ones do this is because they have what we call codependent tendencies , and codependency is when you put other people's needs ahead of your own on a fairly consistent basis . That's what codependency is . You put yourself on the back burner , you make other people more important , and the reason that people do that is because they're very afraid of conflict . Conflict is the thing that they don't want more than anything else in , like the whole wide world , you know , because they haven't learned how to deal with conflict , and many of them came from homes that had addiction or had violence or something . So when there was conflict , when there was contrast , when there was anger , when there was any of that kind of stuff going on , it felt very unsafe . So a lot of people learned as children how to keep things just very even and very nice and very pleasant and I'll go along to get along and I'll just , you know , do that because it's safer . And then they go into their marriages and they have babies and they raise them that way . As soon as the baby squeals a little bit , the baby gets what they want and then they grow up into entitled adults , right ? So one of the things that I need to work with with families around is to not is to break that cycle of entitlement , to break that cycle of enabling and to learn how to deal with somebody's anger . It's not okay if somebody gets angry . It's not okay if somebody throws something at you or , you know , hurts you . But it's okay for somebody to be angry . There are ways to handle that that are self-respecting , right ? So the last sake examples of enabling are things like giving money to somebody with an addiction . You know where that money is going to go and the addict says , mom , I need 20 bucks . And mom says , oh well , okay , 20 bucks , what could that hurt ? But of course it does , and so those kind of behaviors keep addicts stuck , and there are many , many more enabling behaviors , but that's just an example . So a helping behavior is something that gives an addict a fighting chance to either go into recovery or stay in recovery .

Speaker 2 17:45

So the message that families really need to give their addicts who are struggling with addiction either they're not in recovery yet or they are in recovery but they're relapsing , they're in and out or you know , even early recovery , when you don't know your own name , you don't know like life is crazy in early recovery . I remember we need to say to the people that we love , we love you , we love you so much and because we love you , we are not willing to support you in any way if you're going to choose addiction of any kind . So if you're not willing to come into recovery yet or you're in and out , you're relapsing and you're doing that dance . We are not wanting to support that anymore , because we love you and we don't want that life for you and it tears us up every time we see you hurt yourself , so we will no longer support you . That means we're not going to give you money .

Speaker 2 18:58

If you live in the family home , you might have to pay rent . You're not to use or drink . If you live here . You know there are things expected of you . We raise the bar of expectation . When you're ready to be in recovery , let us know and we'll be there for you in every way that we can . This isn't a punishment . It's because we love you . We want to help you get out of this life .

Speaker 1 19:24

Right , yeah , I love that and I think you just gave some families some really great things that they can say you know some ways that they can articulate what they can do to help their family member without , like you said , enabling and just like . Here you go , just you know , because you don't want to have conflict , because there will be conflict , especially with somebody that's active addiction .

Speaker 2 19:53

Yeah , and you know , even saying that to an addict they could punch a hole through a wall , right , just hearing that boundary , you know . So if you , if you're in a family that's struggling with addiction sorry about clearing my throat and you need some help with being able to know how to save this to an addict , know how to deal with any pushback . We're here for you . At Love with Foundries , we work primarily with families that are addicted .

Speaker 1 20:27

That's such a much needed service for sure . So so what are you ? What are some common challenges ? You talked about some band boundaries and you talked about how the families can take care of themselves a bit during the recovery process by setting those boundaries . But what are some common challenges that arrive , arise in rebuilding that relationship when someone is in recovery ?

Speaker 2 20:56

Well , you know , when families start changing the rules of the game , the addicts

Navigating Addiction

Speaker 2 21:03

set up and take notice and often don't like those changes . So , so loved ones need to learn how to set and maintain really healthy boundaries , to be able to language them well , to be able to maintain them , because if you , if you set a boundary that you're not going to maintain , those will not set it . The addict is just going to keep poking at you till you cave anyway . So you need to be able to not cave . You know , and sometimes it means for parents of adult children who are , or teenagers , putting a lock on their bedroom door so that the kids can't just get in and steal the credit cards , and things like that that happen . The most important thing is for parents , for families , to start taking care of themselves in ways that they haven't . Take themselves off the back burner , start living their own lives with boundaries with the addict that they're enforcing and role model that , instead of role modeling , oh , we'll do anything for you . What is it that you need ?

Speaker 1 22:25

Right , yeah , yeah . So what are some of those ways that you usually recommend that families do , that to take to put themselves first to , but yet still be able to be there for their loved one ?

Speaker 2 22:39

Yeah , so I've written a book which I never thought I would ever do . I've actually got four of them now about this topic and the big . The book that I'm talking about is called Loving and Attic Loving Yourself . It's the top 10 survival tips for loving someone with an addiction . So I have 10 tips in the book , 10 things like the difference between helping and enabling , like the fact that you can't change your addict . You can't change your . You can't make your addict do anything . You can't make anybody else do anything . That's just how it is on this planet of free will . But what we can do is we can make it more uncomfortable for an addict to continue to use , or for an addict to continue to relapse , or for an addict to continue to feel entitled that they own you and that you should jump every time they tell you to . This is so not good for an addict and it's so not good for you , the loved ones . So you're asking okay , I lost my train of thought for a minute , but the reason that I started talking about the book is because self care is the biggest chapter in the book , okay , and the title of that chapter is self care does not equal selfish , yeah , so so that's so . That's something that loved ones need to kind of wrap their heads around that if I do put myself first , if I go out and play a couple of rounds of golf , if I go on a cruise , if I take care of myself , am I being selfish ? Because my addict may tell me that I am being selfish If I'm not catering to the addict . One of the ways they think they might get me to cater to them again is to tell me how selfish I am . And for people who are codependent and have put their needs on the back burner , that's a trigger . I'm selfish . But let me tell you the difference between selfish and selfish with a hyphen . So selfish is I want what I want when I want it . I want it right now . I want to write fn now and I'll step on anyone I need to to get it . But that doesn't really sound like the loved one . That sounds more like the addict , right ? So that's that's what selfish looks like .

Speaker 2 25:31

Selfish is about Okay , I need to take care of myself physically , make sure I'm eating right . You know doing for my body , my temple , what I need to do . I need to look at , look after myself emotionally , my feelings . Do I need to talk to somebody about what I'm feeling ? How am I doing ? I need to look after myself mentally , like am I using my mind ? Because if I'm not , I don't know what will happen .

Speaker 2 26:06

I need to challenge myself , you know , and spiritually , what does that mean to you ? How do you pursue that , you know ? But it's , it's something nourishing . All of these things are nourishing , things that you do for yourself , and what I like to tell families is that this is what you need to role model for your addict , because this is what the addict needs to learn how to do as well is take care of themselves that way and see you doing it . So self care is is so important Getting yourself off that back burner . You have every right . Your needs matter . You matter in this equation more than you think you do if you are the family member that's struggling alongside an addict . Right ?

Speaker 1 26:57

Yes , that is so powerful , that's such powerful information that people do need to recognize that taking care of yourself isn't being selfish , and I love how you , you know , compared the two and really the addict is the one that's being selfish . Right there with there . I want it when I want it . Yeah , I mean , and both of us have been there , yeah , exactly .

Speaker 1 27:24

So , so , before we close , I would like to know . So you work with addicts as well as families , so I'm curious to know what that looks like from beginning point to end point for you . Okay .

Speaker 2 27:42

Okay .

Speaker 2 27:44

So in most cases we are at level boundaries . We're we're a specialized service . We we specialize in working with families that are suffering and struggling because of somebody's addiction and most of the families that come to us have tried lots of different things before they get to us . Mostly it's family members who contact us . Mostly it's not the addict . Every once in a while we get an addict who contacts us and says I'm ready , I need help , and it's like , yay , you know . But most of the time it's the family members and sometimes they come in what they like .

Speaker 2 28:32

One of the first things they'll say is we know we're enabling , but we know we're enabling , but we don't know what else to do . We don't and they don't . They don't know what else to do . Nobody else has told them because nobody is specializing in working with these families . If you go to a therapist or counselor that has a different kind of specialty , that deals just with grief or anxiety or something like that , but doesn't really know how to help you navigate these waters , you're not going to get what you need .

Speaker 2 29:04

And often the families I wouldn't say often , but sometimes we get families who just want us to fix their addict , just to see my son and fix my son , and then everything will be okay . And that's just not how it works , because there are family dynamics at play here that need to be unraveled and rebuilt . So the families call us and we start working with them . We start working with the spouse of the addict , we start working with the parents of the addict , we start working with the siblings Sometimes it's the grandparents , you know and when they begin to really understand the difference between enabling and helping and start doing helping behaviors , things start to change . The addict starts to change . They start to see oh , you know , what I've been doing isn't working anymore . What am I going to do now , you know ? And so we help the family members , get the addicts ready for us to work with them . Okay , but until a family does something different than what they've been doing , the addict won't budge .

Speaker 2 30:21

Because what we know is that an enabled addict doesn't recover or not for long . If you keep doing everything for an addict that they can do for themselves and should do for themselves , why should they do anything except use and drink and gamble ? And you know they can do stuff they're doing . So that's what we do , that's our process , and we work with families , usually for about three to six months , because it takes a little while to change these dynamics . Some families we work with longer and some shorter . It's organic , it's , you know , whatever your family needs and we see how the progress happens . And then you know , usually by then we're working with the addicts as well . Wow , and even if we aren't , you know , even if the addict never comes for counseling , the family is taking care of themselves , right , right , so they can still live their best lives if they want to , even though they love an addict , because they can't make the addict recover or stay in recovery , mm-hmm yeah .

Speaker 1 31:35

Well , I love that . I'm glad that I asked that question , because so many times and you said it too like we cannot make our loved one want recovery . We can't make them want to recover . It is a choice that they have to make . But the thing I love so much about the work that you do is that the family is not powerless to just sit there and watch it all happen , and that's something I never , until this conversation between us , I never really considered . But that is so true . The family does have the power , like you said , to stop enabling , to set the boundaries , and then you know , there are a lot of times you have seen changes within the addicts that come to you as well , and so that , I think , provides a lot of hope to families who feel very hopeless . And helpless .

Speaker 2 32:29

Yeah , that's right , that's exactly right . And just as the addicts have a choice about whether they're going to be in recovery sort of the family members are they going to choose to do something different or are they going to revert back to the enabling because it's easier . So this is again why sometimes three to six months , because the families are learning new things . But it's hard and they slip back and they give the addict money or they do something that they know they shouldn't do . We know we enabled last week , but you know , but that's okay , that's okay , they're learning something new . It takes a while when you're learning something new . So we understand that and we just keep at it because as long as somebody is alive , there is hope . And the family's job is not to make things easy for the addict . The family's job is to make things less easy for the addict . The family's job is to make things more uncomfortable for the addict so that the addict doesn't want to stay in addiction or doesn't want to keep relapsing .

Speaker 2 33:42

There's an acronym in 12 step recovery . There's so many great slogans . This is one of the

Power of Choice in Addiction Recovery

Speaker 2 33:48

things I love . I love a few things about 12 step programs . I just don't like it when they say that we're powerless . We have a disease , I have a disease and I know there's a difference , right ? So another way to say relapse is flip , and it's kind of a minimizing word . It's like oops , I slipped . Relapse is this heavy word , I relapsed or I slipped . But there's an acronym for slip and it stands for sobriety loses its priority . So you've got somebody in recovery and things are going okay , maybe they're on that pink cloud and they're enjoying things , but then they have a broken shoelace or something major happens to them , a diagnosis or something like that , and sobriety loses its priority and they make a choice to go back and use again . That's how that happens .

Speaker 2 34:53

Recovery is a choice . Staying in recovery is a choice . Relapsing is a choice . Enabling or not enabling is a choice . All of it is choice . So when , if nothing changes , nothing changes one of my favorite things Right , and if you , if you keep , if you always do what you've always done , you'll always get what you've always gotten , it's really a decision . It's a choice the family members make . Am I willing to do the work it takes for our family to be healthier , or am I going to tell myself it's too hard and argue for those limitations and stay stuck with the addict . That's not a good choice in my mind . That that's not a loving act toward the addict Right To allow it to continue .

Speaker 1 35:48

Yeah , I 100% agree with that . Thank you so much . So what ? Can you tell us the titles of it ? You said you wrote four book . You've written four books , so can you tell us the titles of those four books ?

Speaker 2 36:03

Yes , and they're on Amazon . I'm just going to read over and get them so I can give you the accurate title . This is the loving and addict , loving yourself , and that's what I'm best known for , and it it one a variety of USA and International Book Awards which you know . When you're an addict , you don't think you're going to do anything to help the world , right ? So to write a book that won awards , and then I have the workbook that goes along with it . So that's called loving an addict , loving yourself , the workbook , you know , very creatively titled , and that one a number of awards as well . And then there's a journal . It's called self respect Sunday for your soul , if you love an addict . So I put out a self respect Sunday piece every morning , every Sunday morning , and it has some kind of beautiful photograph , you know , and then it has a quote from my book loving an addict , on here and lined paper with butterflies , because butterflies are so important in life and people can write in that . And then I'm part of an anthology as well , called voices of the 21st century women transforming the world , and I have a chapter in that . Oh , so cool . Wow , yeah , yeah , yeah . And someday I'm going to write a book about narcissism . Oh , narcissism and addiction , narcissism and codependency I think is going to be my next book , but I'm a little too busy right now to do that . If I could just say and thank you for asking about my books , I do appreciate that .

Speaker 2 38:06

And a free 30 minute consultation to anyone who just fills out our questionnaire . As soon as we get the questionnaire , we get back to you , we set up the 30 minute call , and the 30 minute call is about you telling us a little bit more about your situation and us telling you about how we work at love with boundaries and what you can expect , and let's see whether that feels like a fit , whether it's a fit for us or we fit for you . If we're not , that's okay . If we are , then we move forward . And I have a group of counselors that work with me who are just spectacular and we , we all just love working with families with addiction and we love seeing the results because they are just amazing . These families , you're so strong , these families are so strong . There's so much strength in these families that they're not even aware of . So as soon as they can start working together and start being united on the same page , that strength comes out .

Speaker 1 39:12

Yeah , oh , wow , well , that is beautiful . Thank you so much , not just I mean thank you for sharing your story , thank for thank you for the work that you are doing . I mean I know that it's making a huge impact and we just need more of that and it kind of start it sounds like it's starting to get more and more recognition , since you've blended your voice to that platform , and so I really appreciate that and thank you so much for being here . I know that my audience is going to get tons of great information and then they can visit your website , lovewithboundariescom , to find out more information .

Speaker 2 39:53

So , yeah , thank you so much , candice . Oh , go ahead , we are worldwide , okay . I mean , zoom has been a blessing for us because we can work with anybody anywhere . As long as you can speak English , we can work with you . We just figure out the time zones , but we can work with anybody . We've got a client in Africa , portugal you know places like that that you'd never expect for us to have , but but they hear , they read the book , they hear me on a podcast or something like this one , and and they really do and reach out . So I'm so happy about that , I'm so happy that we can . It doesn't have to be the US or Canada , it can be anywhere . Right , it is everywhere .

Speaker 1 40:40

It's everywhere , absolutely , and it's just getting worse .

Speaker 2 40:45

Unfortunately , that's right . That's right . But we can make it better . We really can . That's right .

Speaker 1 40:50

Yeah , and I think that's part of the thing that propels both of us , because you know it's . I heard something like free people . Free people , you know , because you always hear hurting people hurt people . But when you've experienced the freedom of sobriety and recovery like we have , when you've been at whatever your bottom is sometimes it's high , sometimes it's really really low when you've experienced that personal bottom and you've been able to , you know , overcome that and you you see how beautiful life can be . It just makes you want to help other people to have that too , because you want to see them living that way .

Speaker 2 41:35

Yeah , yeah . So you and I are both here for those who are ready and rolling and wanting and and we hope you contact us .

Speaker 1 41:44

Yes , absolutely Well . Thank you so much , candice . It was such a blessing to have you here , and I'm going to pick up your book , at least one of the first one , because that one sounds good . We'll see , yeah , so thank you so much .

Speaker 2 41:59

You're welcome . Thank you for having me and bye everyone , good luck .

Speaker 1 42:04

Well , that does it for this episode of the Catholic sobriety podcast . I hope you enjoyed this episode and I would invite you to share it with a friend who might also get value from it as well , and make sure you subscribe so you don't miss a thing . I am the Catholic sobriety coach , and if you would like to learn how to work with me or learn more about the coaching that I offer , visit my website , thecatholicsobrietycoachcom . Follow me on Instagram at theCatholicSobrietyCoach . I look forward to speaking to you next time , and remember I am here for you , I am praying for you . You are not alone .