How Fathers Can Break Generational Trauma Before It Reaches Their Daughters w/ Jennifer Chase

Breaking generational trauma as a father starts with the courage to face what you’ve been avoiding.

In this deeply honest episode of The Daughtered Podcast, Oscar sits down with Jennifer Chase, founder of Rise Addiction Life Coaching, whose story spans generations of trauma, addiction, healing, and family restoration. 

Jennifer opens up about growing up in a home marked by alcoholism and abuse, her own battle with opioid addiction after brain surgery, and the heartbreaking moment she realized addiction had impacted her son as well. Together, she and Oscar unpack what fathers need to understand about the hidden ways pain, silence, enabling, and unspoken family wounds get passed down. 

This conversation is ultimately about courage—the courage to face the “ball of yarn” of unresolved pain, choose discomfort over denial, and model healing, vulnerability, and connection for our children.

In this episode:

• How addiction and trauma become generational
• Why fathers must remove shame and talk about the “elephant in the room”
• The danger of silence, enabling, and emotional isolation
• Why vulnerability is one of the strongest things a dad can model
• How healing yourself changes your daughter’s future
• Why connection is the true opposite of addiction

If you’re a dad carrying pain, patterns, or habits you know need to stop with you—this episode is for you.

Rise Addiction Life Coaching

🎧 Listen in and ask yourself: What cycle ends with me?

00:00 Fear Shame And Courage

00:59 Podcast Welcome And Guest

03:19 Jennifer Family Addiction Roots

05:08 Brain Tumor To Opiates

06:59 Enabling And Medical Legitimacy

08:19 How Dependence Sneaks In

10:50 Opiates As Emotional Relief

13:43 Comfort Is A Slow Death

16:46 Generational Trauma Ball Of Yarn

21:25 What Dads Must Do Now

26:35 Wishing For Dad Healing

28:01 What Dad Could Have Done

30:12 Hospital Confrontation And Denial

31:16 Name the Elephant

32:14 Shame-Free Family Healing

33:52 Spotting Early Signs

36:38 Parenting Pendulum Swing

39:16 Grace Over Perfection

43:21 Choosing Courage to Grow

48:54 Find Your People

52:11 Modeling Vulnerability

55:11 Coaching and Resources

57:53 Closing and Next Steps

Guest Disclaimer:

The views and opinions expressed on this podcast are solely those of the guests. They do not necessarily reflect the views or opinions of the host, any organizations, companies, or institutions mentioned, or corporate entities represented by the host.

Our aim is to provide a platform for diverse perspectives and open dialogue. While we strive for accuracy and balance, it's important to recognize that opinions may vary. We encourage critical thinking and further exploration of the topics discussed.

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Transcript

SPEAKER_02 0:46

Anytime you deal with addiction, whether it's your loved one or an addiction that you're suffering with yourself, fear oftentimes uh starts um being the root of all decisions that we make and and and shame, right? Fear and shame. It's so important for a father that is maybe suffering with alcoholism or addiction themselves or or sees the pattern in their home, um, really begins with a humbled heart and more courage than probably they've ever had in their whole life. And to begin to make decisions for the people in their home that is going to impact their children moving forward for the rest of their life. I think if there's a father out there today listening and wondering how they can positively change or impact how addiction is manifesting in their home, the most important thing that they need to do is become humble and courageous.

SPEAKER_00 1:45

Welcome to the Daughter Podcast, where fathers become everyday heroes in their daughters' lives. Grow, evolve, and lead with love. Here's your host, Oscar Pinya.

SPEAKER_01 1:56

Hey, and welcome back, everyone, to the Daughter Podcast. Oscar here, your fellow growing girl dad, back again for another great episode for you guys. And today I have a special guest, someone who brings not just professional wisdom, but personal experience, and one that is very complex, and that is in the conversation of addiction. Today, my guest is Jennifer Chase, and she has graciously agreed to come on and just give us some of her story and her experience and how that will make a big difference for fathers in their families with their daughters. So, Jennifer, thank you so much for being here with us. How are you today?

SPEAKER_02 2:41

I am so great. I'm so excited to be here.

SPEAKER_01 2:45

I am very excited. I was talking to you about this before we hit record, and I mean, your story is one, right? Like it's incredible. Um, just everything that you have gone through to get to where you are now, which is now helping people get families get through these very, very complex issues like uh like addiction. Yeah. And so as we've mentioned many times on the show before, I love the perspectives that my guests bring because this is something that I could have a conversation with a buddy, and I'd be like, Yeah, I don't know, bro. Just you know, go see a doctor or something. But that doesn't help. And in and I I know that it's kind of our our lane, right? Like we don't want to give random bad advice and we don't want to um say something that we don't know anything about. And that's what makes this so incredibly helpful is to get stories in here and to bring perspectives that fathers out there can take and go implement into their families. And so that's that's why you're here, and that's why the daughter community is here. So before we get started, Jennifer, give us a little bit of your background, tell us about your incredible story, and and then you know, get into a little bit of the work that you're doing.

SPEAKER_02 4:04

Yeah. So I am the youngest of three children. I grew up in a uh my dad was a successful businessman, and I had a great life, right? From the outside looking in. Um, I had all of the things that people would think a great childhood involved, with the exception of I am at least the fourth generation. Uh my parents both have four generations that I have been able to find down both of their sides of the family that have alcoholism. And um my grandma was an opiate addict before in the like 50s, before that was kind of a thing to be. But for the most part, my family dynamic has always been uh filled with addiction and alcoholism. And unfortunately, I'm part of a statistic that one that says out of one every at one out of every four little girl and one out of every six little boy that's kind of raised in that dynamic of addiction is being sexually abused. And I was being sexually abused by my mom's dad. So growing up, there was this dichotomy of you have a great life, right? I was raised mostly, I I was born in in the 70s and and lived in the 80s where we didn't have cell phones and we, you know, told time based on when the street lights popped on. And you know, we had we had a great life, except for the dichotomy of what was going on in my home. Um, and and one of the things I think that's most important about me was that was never gonna be me. Like I saw my parents and their parents and the generations before them inability to break the chains of addiction as pure weakness. Like I had more courage in my pinky finger than they had in their entire bodies. And that was never going to be me. But unfortunately, in 2003, I was diagnosed with a hemorrhaging brain tumor. And when they removed the tumor, uh, they caused uh nerve damage, which led me on my path to chronic pain, which led me on my path to obiates. And so I too uh was the fifth generation of dealing with substance abuse and the the trials and tribulations that came with that. And then unfortunately, when my son was a senior in high school, I found out that I had inadvertently become his drug dealer. And he too was addicted to substance. Um, and and so the perspective that you speak about of why this is so important to me is I have I have the vast perspective, right? I have the perspective of not only a grandchild, but my dad was an alcoholic, and then me struggling with addiction myself and then walking through that with my son. Um, you know, I I understand better than I wish I did about how generational impact happens in addicted families. And, you know, fathers are a huge part of that. And even in my family, where uh my husband wasn't the one using substance, but um, if you were sitting here, I'd say the same thing. He is the best enabler on the planet, right? Um, and I was the one taking the substance, but he was the one that helped me sort of maintain status quo through all of those years of using substance. And so I think it's such an important perspective to look at as like how as fathers and human beings really, but you know, your podcast is about fathers. How do we either contribute to the solution of this thing or continue to to contribute to old sort of narratives that we've learned through um experience and education doesn't really serve our families anymore?

SPEAKER_01 7:44

Yeah. You mentioned your husband as an enabler, I assume it's an inadvertent enabler, right?

SPEAKER_02 7:53

Yeah, it's um so he grew up also with an alcoholic dad. Okay, and uh watched and was probably a bit of a mama's boy growing up, so had really the perspective of how that dynamic affected her and their family. And even though before his dad passed, they were really able to um heal that relationship. Uh he watched his mom, right? Kind of make everything okay. And in my situation, it was it was difficult because I had this medical condition um that was legitimate, right? I've been to the mayo clinic, I've done all of these things to try to come up with a solution to the medical condition. And so that enabled him, because he loves me, um, you know, to try to make it easier and better. Uh, what he didn't know for so long was that that medical condition had turned into an addiction, or I'm sorry, the medical condition had turned into an addiction. And um, it wasn't until we were pretty far down, you know, 14 years of this that he realized that he was impacting it pretty greatly.

SPEAKER_01 9:01

Wow, what what a weight to carry.

SPEAKER_02 9:03

Yeah.

SPEAKER_01 9:04

Yeah. You know, before we get into a lot of the other stuff, I I mentioned to you a little bit before one thing that uh I don't have a perspective on, and and respectfully I'll say luckily I don't have a perspective on is is that addiction side. One thing that I do have a view of is how I don't know if the word is easy, but how yeah, how easy it can you one can get to that. I'll give you a perfect example. I I had a major back surgery in 2017. And you know, recovery is is surgery recovery. You're just dealing with, you know, you got a little bit of the pain up front, and then you gotta start doing physical therapy, so on and so forth, you can go down the line. I remember I was on the heavy stuff, and I remember I got to a point, and I can't tell you why, and it may have been something my wife said, but I would be sitting still, not moving, didn't change my position, didn't change the effort my muscles were making, and I would start to be in pain. Right. And initially I would just, oh, it's time for the meds. Let's go get the meds and pop on in. Well, when I when I started to kind of question it, I'm like, wait a minute. There's no reason if you really think about how this process works, there's no real reason this far out of surgery and not doing not putting in any effort where I should that should trigger any pain. So I started questioning that, and I'm like, okay, I'm gonna start timing this. And sure enough, so I would take the medication, and all of a sudden, I I could have sworn it was a six-hour mark. Like the six hour mark give or take five minutes. Yeah, my body will start telling me, hey, you need this thing.

SPEAKER_00 11:29

Yeah.

SPEAKER_01 11:31

And it it for me it got to a point where I actually became scared of the medication, right? The feeling of needing it, the feeling that my body would get the intense sensation that I needed to put it in there so that I could be in a normal state. Yeah, right. And I remember distinctly telling my wife, I'm like, I can see how this road gets taken very, very easily for a legitimate reason initially, as you mentioned, but how it takes it takes a real hard right turn at some point.

SPEAKER_02 12:06

Yeah, and I started using opiates in 2003, right? Which is in the height of sort of the the epidemic, if you will. Um, and you know, I I think that the I shared earlier, like I was never gonna become an alcoholic. Right. But here I was given medication that a doctor was prescribing me and saying, oh, no, no, no, this is fine. You should be, you know, you're feeling pain. It's fine if you take this every, you know, however often I tell you. And so there was, you know, I share this with people. I had been about two weeks out of surgery and I was in my room in my bed by myself, and I could hear my family out there playing. Um, we were kind of a uh no rules, like you could throw balls and play baseball and whatever in my house, right? And I could hear them playing. And I said out loud as though there were another 10 people sitting there, like, where the hell has this been my whole life? Like in that moment, um, I was 29 at the time, and it felt like the first time that I could fit in my skin. It felt like the first time that I could breathe. It felt like I didn't care that I had just almost died, or that my, you know, I had been abused, or that my dad, like I didn't care in that moment. It was the first time that I was okay. And I share that with people because oftentimes when you don't struggle with addiction yourself and you don't understand what it feels like, like substance was never the problem. Substance has always been the solution to the problem.

SPEAKER_01 13:35

Right.

SPEAKER_02 13:36

Right. And so in that moment, I share that moment because in that moment I found my solution. And it was being prescribed to me legally.

SPEAKER_03 13:46

Right.

SPEAKER_02 13:47

The doctor said, Yeah, it makes perfect sense that you need this.

SPEAKER_01 13:50

And it was good for you.

SPEAKER_02 13:51

Yeah, yes, right. Um, and and they believed it so much they kept prescribing it, which told me that it was okay, right, in a lot of ways. But if I'm being honest, I knew there was a problem in that moment. Like I feel like that moment was the last time that I had really any control over the substance that I was taking. Like when I had determined that this was the solution to all of it, um, I was so already, and that was like two weeks, right? And so I had brain surgery in January. My husband had ACL surgery in January, and he doesn't like med, so he gave me his. And then I had ACL surgery in March. And so by the end of the surgeries, I was already so deep into this, um, but nobody knew, yeah, right. Nobody knew. And I kept the secret, and I finally, 29 years into my life, felt like I finally fit in my skin.

SPEAKER_01 14:51

Wow. That we're gonna get into some of that. What I will say is that this is a shameless plug for uh the podcast sponsor, and the reason they're the sponsor is that in that time, and and I say this, I want to bring this up because you mentioned your husband in in a healthful thought process filled that gap.

SPEAKER_02 15:17

Yeah, right?

SPEAKER_01 15:18

He fills the gap because he cares for you, and it's like, well, you obviously you obviously need it, right? And so he fills the gap. In in the process that I was going through, when I finally realized that there was just something that was off. And I in and here I sit too as I listen to you. I can easily think like how quickly, instead of thinking this is kind of scary, how quickly it would have been like this works really well, right? Like it's like two different, it's it's just a fork in the road at that point. What changed it for me, or at least a big factor, was it, was that it was an Instagram post. Never seen it before, and it said, Comfort is a slow death, prefer pain. That's what it said. And I remember I remember sitting there and just thinking, just thinking, what that just hit me, and I said, What does that mean? And I went back to it, and then I couldn't find it, and you know you have to search to see who put it on there because I wasn't paying attention who put it on there. Couldn't find it for a few days. I'm still taking medication, not happy with myself about it. Like it just this whole thing wasn't feeling right to me, and then it popped up again, and then this time I saved it, and it was few will hunt. And their whole mantra is you know, everybody wants to eat, but only a feeble hunt, meaning not everybody's willing to do the work. But their biggest thing was comfort is a slow death, prefer pain. And it's obviously people can take it however they want, but you know, they're not saying go break your leg and just walk around, like but but in that moment, in that moment, I thought, well, maybe I can do this without this thing, maybe it'll be painful for a few days, but maybe I'll move forward. And it was a true chain uh game changer at that very moment to at least get the brain thinking about that fork. Yeah, because I don't think I would have thought much about that fork, I would have got there, and what are humans like? Easy, easiest point from Asias line from A to B, right?

SPEAKER_02 17:28

Yeah, so the easy way our brains are wired that way, yeah, right. Absolutely.

SPEAKER_01 17:32

And who likes to be in pain? I mean, right? It's it's it's not it's not something that we desire to do. I mean, I think I think scientifically our bodies are trying to keep us away from that, yeah. And um, and so it was just a I just think of that as you're talking, where you know, you got the gap filled. What if something like that? Just something to trigger the mind to think something different. Now, again, that's just a thought.

SPEAKER_02 17:59

It's not, you know, um, there's no judgment, it's just well, no, and I love it because I think about generationally from emotional standpoint, not even such physical pain, right? I think one of the reasons, if I can just share a little bit about what I know about my dad and even my grandfather that abused me, um, so my grandfather that abused me had a twin brother, and they both abuse children. So you have to you have to put some dots together that would suggest that they also were abused as children, right? Um, and then I look at my dad, and my dad had a brutal father. Brutal father, right? Um, and so oftentimes I think generationally, we think to ourselves, well, like I wasn't as bad as he was, right? I wasn't as bad as my dad. And he wasn't even close. I mean, my dad was a gold star dad in comparison to his dad, right? And so I I look at this and you wonder generationally how addiction and trauma really play a role in your family. And it's what you just spoke to is it's like in order to untangle this ball of trauma and experiences, right? The only way we learn how to do that, the only coping skill we have is substance. And so the idea of I'm gonna stop using substance, I still have this ball. Yeah, I still have this thing. And I have to figure out one by one by one string how to untangle this ball in order to heal this family. And it is so incredibly exhausting and overwhelming to even think about it. If, if, if it doesn't even feel safe, right? It doesn't even feel even imaginable. And especially in past generations, specifically with men, we we justified behavior, right? We just said, oh, they're just men being men, or like, you know, oh, they they provide for their family so they can do whatever they want to do, or you know, and and so there was no need to start untangling this ball. There was just this coping skill of life that I had. And and I think about that even from my grandfather's perspective, and I have real empathy and compassion for that, right? Um I know how much I didn't want to repeat generational cycles, and I have to believe at least my dad felt the same way.

SPEAKER_03 20:30

Right.

SPEAKER_02 20:31

Um, and like I said, my dad was 16 times the father that he had as a father. Uh, but the problem was it wasn't enough necessarily for me, even though my dad was my guy, right? I think I said this to you some time ago. Like there was one person on this planet that I'm going to war with and I know loves me, it was my dad. Um, and and again, that brings in some complexities when he was an alcoholic, uh, because there was some misunderstanding, right? You never knew who it was gonna be. And so when he was drunk and maybe not so nice, I took that as it being personal that I was the problem rather than identifying, especially as a child, what was going on. Um, but it wasn't enough for me. And and I have I had a hard time saying that for a long, long time because my dad was my guy and I never wanted to hurt him, or I never wanted to like for people not to think he was a like there was always a caveat, right? Like, but he was great, but he loved me, right? Um and and the truth is it it wasn't enough. It it wasn't the childhood that I needed, and and it wasn't just him, right? Like obviously there was the abuse, and and there was always a feeling that my mom didn't protect me from some things that I should have been protected from. And there was a lot of things going on, but that relationship with my dad um has always been the most impactful. I will never forget as long as I live. Um, I think I was 12 or 13 and I did a fairly what I think is a fairly normal 12 or 13 to think thing to do. And I told my mom that I hated her before I went to school. And I got home from school and my dad was waiting for me and very, very, very angry. And I experienced some physical abuse that day, and it has it has stayed with me forever because I this he was he was everything to me. Right, and I wasn't everything to him.

SPEAKER_01 22:34

Right, right.

SPEAKER_02 22:35

That's how it felt in that moment.

SPEAKER_01 22:37

Absolutely, yeah.

SPEAKER_02 22:38

I'm I'm not everything to you. And I think if I were to tell dads that are listening to me that are maybe struggling right now, is like I know it's hard. I've done it, I've gotten sober. Um, I've I've unwound the ball of yarn, if you will, uh, without substance. And I will never be one that talks about, oh, this is easy or anybody can do it, or it's it's hard. It's really, really hard. But this is what I know. We have a responsibility when we become parents to do everything that we can, right? And that takes more courage in areas. Areas that we don't think there's courage, right? Right. Dealing with things that we thought would once kill us, that that we do because we love our children. And this is one of those times, which is you are impacting generations right now, based on how we are parenting these babies. And look, I just told you I became my mom, my son's drug dealer. Right. I just I just told you I inadvertently became my son's drug dealer. So this isn't certainly a point of of judgment, but rather a point of experience. Um, and if I were to be able to go back and either one have it, my dad died from this disease in 2015, and so it's been gone for a decade now. But if I could talk to him now from my sober perspective, I would say, I see you, right? I I see why you use substance.

SPEAKER_03 24:05

Yeah.

SPEAKER_02 24:05

And I have great empathy and compassion for that, but I need you to know that it's impacting generations to come.

SPEAKER_01 24:13

Yeah. One thing uh that I say all the time on on the show is that I am never going to or have ever talked from a pulpit. I'm talking from the trench, right?

SPEAKER_02 24:29

I'm digging present. And that's what it's in the trenches, yeah.

SPEAKER_01 24:33

Exactly. That's exactly where you're at. Absolutely.

SPEAKER_02 24:36

Yeah.

SPEAKER_01 24:37

You talked about the ball, the the the ball that needs to be untied.

SPEAKER_00 24:42

Yeah.

SPEAKER_01 24:43

I assume that that ball being untied is breaking that generational problem. Yeah, yeah. And I I can I mean, I've um I untie my daughter's necklaces, the little metal ones with it, and it drives me up the wall and is not easy, and it takes a lot of finesse and it takes a lot of uh patience, yes, and almost almost no force. Which is which is weird to say, right? When we're looking at the wounds that you're talking about, yeah, right, the wounds that I I want to believe that many fathers don't realize that they're leaving with their daughters. That I'm sure I've done at some point. If if you're looking at that ball, that's all the wounds and all the things that he had in his past. Obviously, he did better, but he didn't undo the the ball all the way. So I assume there was some strings that were pulled and you know, some ripped, probably stayed in there. And I always see that as like, here, Jennifer, it's your ball now. Yeah, is because you didn't take care of it before.

SPEAKER_02 26:05

Yeah, yeah, it's it's absolutely true. And and not only was it my ball, but then and and then I passed it on to my son and said, sorry, I didn't get this done. Yeah, I'm gonna need to give it to you, right? And I I think ultimately, um, I've been sober for about eight and a half years now, and that is exactly what propels me through hard days because um I didn't have I didn't I didn't have the courage or the patience to sit there day after day, right? And and unlike the necklace of your daughters, this ball has all these emotions and experiences and traumas and PTSDs and triggers and um core beliefs about myself, right? I think that that's one of the most challenging is growing up. I I I began a core belief about myself was that I'm not lovable. And I had a million reasons of why I could show you that that's true, right? Right. I looked for evidence from the world, and the world gave me evidence, is how I felt. And so part of untangling that ball is dealing with this past narrative or this past belief about myself and determining A, do I still believe that? And B, if I don't, what the hell do I do with that information?

SPEAKER_03 27:26

Yeah.

SPEAKER_02 27:27

Right. Um, and and so I do think it's interesting, and we have passed the this ball of yarn. Um, and and I think what happens is we get some of it undone and we pass it on to the next generation, and the next generation adds to it. And so it gets bigger again. And then we do a little bit of unwinding and then we pass it on to the next generation and and and the in it gets big again, right? And I look at at my dad, um I desperately wish that he had been able to come to some point of peace and healing before he passed on from this disease. Because, in all of my heart, my dad was six five. Sorry, this is making me emotional. My dad was six five, uh, big dude. When you walked into the room, you knew that he was there. Uh, successful businessman, like my dad was that guy. And I think that persona, that that thing that he was kept him so often from really doing the healing in the long run. You know, he was in the army and he was a college basketball player and all the things. And I think all of those things that he presented at keeped him kept him away from sort of this softer healing side. And I just wish more than anything, I wasn't sober when my dad got when my dad died. Um, so neither of us were sober when he died, but I so desperately wish that we would have been able to have a real heart-to-heart conversation about why both of us ultimately had chosen substance as a solution.

SPEAKER_03 29:06

Right.

SPEAKER_02 29:07

And um the the the pain that kind of made that decision what it was.

SPEAKER_01 29:15

Yeah. In your thoughts, what would have been one thing, a couple things that your dad could have done. So we you just mentioned you know what you're saying is ego, right? Like he you know, in in many times in uh in what I know of addiction, the addiction can take over to where even if you want to, uh the the the ego alone or the your your reputation or what have you is is what it is, at least in your brain. I believe that ball is gonna get carried, excuse me, it's gonna be passed along. Um I I look at uh all sorts of things that can go into that ball, and you mentioned you know you might move a string, but that string may make you make you stop working on the ball because that string was full of X and Z and what have you. When you think back now, especially with your experience, I I what could your dad had have done that not necessarily may have prevented you from getting into addiction? Um we'll we'll say alcoholism, obviously. The the the um narcotics were uh a product of uh a situation, however, you know we know that there's um addictive personalities, there's all these different things.

SPEAKER_02 30:37

I I for sure had the biology. Yeah.

SPEAKER_01 30:41

But when you're looking at, let's just say the alcoholism side, right? Your dad used it um as a solution. Is there anything that he could have done while he was alive to try to break the cycle with you? Not necessarily like, hey, I'm gonna stop, but but maybe like I don't know. I I think of like I saw my dad try to stop. He he went to AA, he did right like it was there a try? Was there to show you effort into yeah?

SPEAKER_02 31:14

So when you asked me the question, what could he have done? I think I was on I was going to answer the question, kind of what you're saying, which is I no, no, no, I I wish he had done anything, acknowledge, right? Um, my dad was in the hospital, he died in 2015, he was in the hospital in 2014, and I was with him in the hospital. And to make a very long story short, he was bleeding and they would, or he was, I'm sorry, he was clotting. He was had uh blood clots. So they would put him on on thinners and they would send him home and he would drink on these thinners and then just about bleed out. Okay, that's the scenario that we were going through. So we I was in the hospital with him after one of these episodes, and um he lived in a completely different state than I did. And I said, Dad, I'm not leaving here until I notify the doctors that you're an alcoholic. And he looked right at me and said, You need to change your flight. And I said, I will. I'll I'll head out of here this afternoon, but not until I tell the doctors that you're an alcoholic. And and up even until that day, my dad, like my dad never said to me, I'm an alcoholic, never said to me I drink too much, never, like, never, ever. Um, and and I think that would have gone a long way, which is can we at least talk about this elephant in the room? Yeah, generational elephant, right? Um can we talk about again? And some of this has to do with generations and and some of those things that have happened, but um it was it was never talked about. And I think that that would have been a huge help for for me to hear him soften a bit to at least me. Like you don't have to soften to the world, but if you could just soften to me and say, I know that that I drink too much and I know that there's a problem, and I I don't know what I'm gonna do about it yet, but I just want you to acknowledge, you know, I just want to acknowledge that I know that it's a thing.

SPEAKER_01 33:10

Right. Almost to give you the permission to do the same.

SPEAKER_02 33:14

Yeah. And and and it it felt like I or we were the crazy ones, right? It was never spoken about. Uh, it was obviously everybody knew about it, but nobody spoke about it. We certainly didn't speak to him about it.

SPEAKER_03 33:29

Yeah.

SPEAKER_02 33:29

Um, and so, you know, I share with families now as I work with them, like the the the first thing we need to do when we're healing as a family of addiction is take the elephant out the out of the room and talk about it as though we have diabetes rather than suffering with addiction, right? Take the shame out of it, take the um embarrassment out of it. Um, in because as a society, we do attach shame and and moral character to addiction. That so often that becomes the way we handle it within a family. And we've got to take the elephant out of the room, we've got to talk about it as though it's like diabetes or cancer.

SPEAKER_01 34:09

Yeah, you imagine if if a diabetic was hiding.

SPEAKER_02 34:13

Yeah. Right?

SPEAKER_01 34:14

Like it wouldn't go very well.

SPEAKER_02 34:16

No, and and it didn't increase a diabetic's uh it didn't increase their likelihood of of being well when they're hiding in the shadows about something, right? It doesn't, it doesn't preclude like like health and wellness and light. It it it is darkness and shame and embarrassment and all of the things that I'm trying to walk out of.

SPEAKER_01 34:38

Yeah. Wow. As you look forward, right? Your father could have done these things and may have given you permission and or a path for yourself. You start experiencing this. So again, I just want to point out you experience it as a daughter, then as a self, then as a mother.

SPEAKER_02 35:06

Yes.

SPEAKER_01 35:08

Is there things that you I mean, you you you would have the background, but was there signs where you're like, oh man, I see this now in my son?

SPEAKER_02 35:18

Oh I mean, we could do a whole podcast just based on that question and and my experience being his mama, right? Um, one of the things that I think is the most important to talk about if when we're raising children is I think oftentimes as parents, I know for sure as a society and I know for sure as an education system, we kind of push our kids to be this like ideal version of themselves, right? Like who we think they should be to be good kids and to you know have proper manners and all, you know, to let's God forbid we got a little ADHD boy, he needs to like be sit and be quiet and do his work, and right, we we push them into this ideal version of themselves. And and the more we push somebody into the ideal version of themselves, they start abandoning and even detesting the authentic version of them. And in between the ideal version and the authentic version is where shame lies, right? Um, and so looking back at my son, I started to realize when he was in about the second grade that he was an incredible deep feeler, okay, that he felt different. So, so kind of like a square peg and a round hole.

SPEAKER_03 36:37

Yeah.

SPEAKER_02 36:38

So he was part of the popular kids, if you will, great athlete. You would have never known it from looking from the outside, looking in. But as his mama, I could start telling that he was just feeling different. Um, and that was the fairly uh early stage of my own addiction. And then as it went on, obviously our life was more chaotic and he started struggling with mental health. But his parents were just trying to get through life, right? Um and and we just thought a lot of the things that we said, oh, he's just a boy, or he'll grow out of it, his frontal lobe will heal, or whatever we were saying about his experience. And so I can't get an exact time out of him because he's a little shady about it, but he was about 14 or 15 when he started smoking weed. Okay, and I knew ish, I didn't know like really, it's not like we had conversations about it, but I suspected based on his friends and kind of what was going on, and you know, all the things that that was happening. I had no idea that he had become addicted to opiates. Oh, um none, not until the day that I figured it all out. Um, but there are so many things that I would do differently, like so many things that I did that contributed to this thing going off the rails. Um, I didn't, I didn't, you know, I was so underprotected as a child that I swung the pendulum clear over to the other side. And I my kids didn't have to do anything hard in their whole life because I just came in and steamrolled it and mama bared it, and they didn't have to do anything hard. I did it all. Right. And that was all about me. That was about my pain and my childhood. Um, and what I realized now is I did as much damage swinging that pendulum over to the other side as my parents did on the side that I was on. Um, and so there's a lot of things that they they never had consequences. I went in and fixed it. So even when, you know, coaches would come to me and say, Hey, some of the boys are getting in trouble, I would get him out of it. Uh, you know, I would fix things for him so that he didn't have to, and and all of those things I would go back and change and can now see. I mean, my son is so much like his mama. If he's listening right now, he's like, quit saying that. I know it. Um, you know, he's such a deep feeler, he has so much shame, like there's so many things that are parallel to his and in his and my life. Um, it was crystal clear in hindsight that he could potentially have a problem.

SPEAKER_01 39:25

It's gotta be extremely frustrating to be able to see those as because you experienced those, right? And then and then not see kind of the end of it where you're saying now obviously hindsight's 2020. We know that. Um, and you and you do the best you can with what you got at the time that you got it, so you're working at it, but man, that is that is something that I think about a lot as a as a father. I think about what I'm doing. You know, I I told you I was talking to um Dr. Emerson uh on the show, and I I made a joke. I was like, I seriously, I feel like half of the stuff I do in my oh that's therapy. Oh, that's therapy. Like I'm like I'm messing my kids up all day, you know? Um yes, but it's I mean, I think I think it's important for us to think about those things and then try to adjust. Yep. You mentioned you wish you would adjust it earlier, yeah.

SPEAKER_02 40:23

Right, but still meant earlier.

SPEAKER_01 40:24

And and that's that's essentially the goal of what we're doing here is to have someone listen and be like, oh, that kind of sounds like me. Let me figure this out.

SPEAKER_02 40:32

Yeah, well, and I'm a quote girl. So this wall back here has a million different quotes. And I want to I want to share two with you today. Well, one of them's mine, so it's not really one of them's a Jennifer Chase quote, but the other one is made me think of what you're talking about as by Maya Angelo, which is we do the very best until we know better. And when we know better, we do better. Um, and that quote alone has given me a lot of sort of it's it's allowed me to love myself, right? And even those past versions of myself. Because the truth is, and and and not only love myself, but love my dad and and even have empathy and compassion for my grandfather because I do believe generationally uh my family has done the very best until they knew better. Uh, unfortunately, some people died, right? My my grandfather died without there being any consequences to the horror that he kind of caused or any of that. But um, I do believe in a in a part of me that everybody was doing the very best that they could. And I know that for sure about myself, right? Like even when I was in the middle of my addiction, it was never um, it wasn't I never tried to cause harm. Um, I did cause harm. So those, I mean, you know, there's discrepancy in that. Uh, but it wasn't my intent to cause harm. Um, and you know, my son's a dad now, and I I watch him and I and I giggle a little bit because um he's gonna have those same experiences. Like he asked me things like, should I be doing this? Should she be doing like all these questions because I know he wants to do the very best that he can. And and like you and I, he probably in this time is gonna wish he had done something differently. Um, and and that's helped me heal and let go of some of the resentment and uh anger and hatred, really, um, a lot of the times. But the second quote um is a is a me quote, and it's this which is perfection is not required. Now that sounds really simple. Like, of course, perfection is not required, but for so many of us, we believe that perfection is required of us in order to be liked, loved, seen, appreciated, and valued. Like in order for somebody to love me, I have to be perfect.

SPEAKER_03 42:48

Right.

SPEAKER_02 42:49

And of course, we are never perfect. And so that makes us fall short of feeling like we are worthy of love and value. And what I learned is it wasn't until I started to allow other people to be short of perfection that I started to allow myself to be short of perfection. So I like to give people this example. If you're in my kitchen and you have a mug in your hand and you drop it accidentally and it shatters everywhere, and I get mad and angry at you for shattering the mug, then my expectation was perfection from you.

SPEAKER_03 43:24

Right.

SPEAKER_02 43:25

Right. And I'm mad that you weren't perfect. And I've got to ask myself the question, is that who I want to be? Right now, if you walk into my kitchen with a mug in your hand and you slam it on the ground on purpose and and break it, then I got beef with you.

SPEAKER_03 43:41

Yeah, right.

SPEAKER_02 43:42

Right. But those two things are different. And so I have to ask myself regularly, almost daily, like, was that their intent? Did they did they mean to cut me off in traffic? Did they mean right to like is that what their intent is? And if the if the answer is no, then I am expecting perfection from people. And what I found is I had to start giving other people grace before I could start giving myself grace.

SPEAKER_01 44:11

Right. I have to go back to both of those quotes. And yours is beautiful, by the way. We're gonna put it, we're gonna put it on there. Thank you. But I'll start with the first one. And and you hit on something so important, and that is that we're doing the best with or we're doing the best that we know until we know better. Yeah, and I know I'm probably probably butchering it, but here's here's the thing, and here's why the daughter podcast is here, and here's why you're sitting with us. When we get to the point of knowing we need to do better, and then we don't, yeah, now we have that problem. Yeah, and it's not just with addiction, it's being a father, being a parent. When you get to the point, and you've I know you've heard this because I know I've heard this. It's like that's just the way I am. Yep. If you get to the point where you have to say that, you know you got to the point where you need to change. Yep. And in order not to change, you just decided this is just who I am.

SPEAKER_02 45:16

Choice.

SPEAKER_01 45:16

Yes.

SPEAKER_02 45:17

Right. And it's a choice in um courage. It's a choice in discipline. It's a choice in a decision whether I'm continuing to make decisions out of fear. Like there's a lot of choices that are wrapped in that. And it takes a tremendous amount of courage to say, I'm going to like open this raw nerve up and I'm going to go figure out how to do better. And I think for so many men, specifically, I think women too, but we're talking about men. Um, you know, it's easy to fall back in, well, I provide for my family, right? Or that's just who I am. Like she knew who she married when she married me, or you know, all of those sort of mindsets. It's it's easy to fall back in that. But the question is, and and I it's like it's not even a question, it's to understand the impact moving forward. Like somebody has to have courage.

SPEAKER_03 46:12

Right.

SPEAKER_02 46:13

Somebody has to have courage. And it it might not have been your father or your grandfather or your mother, like they might have not chosen courage, but but to me, when when I got to that point, I was like, I'm not, I'm not gonna be the person that somebody says did not have enough courage to change this thing. And and I think that that's the moment that you're talking about is this split moment, this pause in time where you decide that fear and safety are going to be what your life story is about, or courage and growth.

SPEAKER_01 46:50

And I would venture to call it discomfort and pain.

SPEAKER_02 46:54

Yeah, that is yes.

SPEAKER_01 46:56

And again, if I have to bring it back, I have to bring it back every single time to prefer pain because comfort is gonna just leave you where you're at. And here's the thing going into your second quote, it's our responsibility to grow from that for our for our children. They didn't choose to be here. So if you're seriously getting to the point where you're just saying, this is where I stop, I no longer want to mess with this ball of craziness, then you have given up the growth that you need in order to show up for your daughters, for your sons, for your spouse.

SPEAKER_02 47:35

Well, and and I think too, like if you're and this is this is gonna say cliche, but I need you to really listen with your heart. Like, if you aren't growing, you are dying. So, I mean, think about it from like a flower perspective or a piece of grass perspective, or a like whatever perspective in in the world you need to look at it. The truth is if you're not growing, you're dying. And so some of us have chosen to ride this thing out dying since we were 18 years old. Like legitimately. Absolutely. And and the the the decision is like, if I'm gonna be, because you are right, nothing grows without discomfort. And I think that that's one of the things that we as human beings don't understand is I think sometimes we think everybody else is living the dream, yeah, and and we're the only ones experiencing pain and discomfort.

SPEAKER_01 48:27

It's the uh Instagram highlight reel, right?

SPEAKER_02 48:29

It really is. And the truth is everyone is experiencing pain and discomfort. It's just the difference on how we choose to handle it and deal with it. Um, and and and again, like I I get if people don't want to do the work, I didn't want to do the work for a long time either. Like, I understand from a cellular level almost what it feels like to know that you need to deal with this ball of yarn, but being so afraid of what you're gonna find when you unravel it.

SPEAKER_03 48:59

Right.

SPEAKER_02 48:59

But if we aren't growing, we are dying. And and if I'm being honest with you, like like this is hard, right? Being being sober, being in recovery, um, dealing with the difficulties that that like I still have to deal with the outcomes of things that I created in my life. Uh, you know, I've sat in many of counseling sessions with my children. It's hard. But what is also hard is being an addict. What is also hard is living mediocre or below who I know I need to be, right? And so literally for every single human being, it's a matter of waking up in the morning and asking yourself the question which hard am I going to choose today?

SPEAKER_01 49:41

When when are you going to pay for that pain?

SPEAKER_02 49:44

Yes.

SPEAKER_01 49:45

Absolutely.

SPEAKER_02 49:46

Because we're not getting out of this thing without it being hard. One hard moves us to growth and healing, and the other hard moves us to darkness and shit, excuse my language, right? Um, and and and so literally every single day it's a question of like which hard am I choosing today? Because we none of us are getting out of this thing without it being hard.

SPEAKER_01 50:08

Absolutely. Speaking of the hard, speaking of the discomfort for that father who is sitting out there listening and realizing that something's gotta change and looking at their daughter at the same time. What do you tell that dad?

SPEAKER_02 50:32

So oftentimes in those situations, we don't want to reach out and and do anything else because we feel like it would be selfish. Well, let me say this you have to find your people. So addiction is the most isolating experience that you will have on the on the planet. Um, it's I mean, I haven't experienced all experiences on the planet, but it's pretty isolating, right? Addiction. And I think for a man, it becomes even more isolating because because they don't share their feelings, they don't show that share their heart, they don't tell their neighbor that they probably have too many beers at night, right? Like it's just so, it's just all in the brain, right? We don't let it out. Um, and if I'm sitting there looking at my daughter and knowing that something has to change, the the number one thing I'm gonna do is find my people. And and I can just speak for myself. My people that I talk about, the people that if my rear end is falling off, that I'm gonna call are not my husband and are not my children. Those are the people that understand what it's like to be in this brain. Those are the people that I don't have to describe my shame to because they understand. Those are the people that I don't have to convince I'm a good person because of the behaviors that I had when I was in the middle of my addiction, because they too are that way, right? They're the people that I sit knee to knee with. And when I need somebody, they're there for me. And when they need somebody, I'm there for them. And because we are so used to isolation, it's not a natural progression to go seek connection, right? Uh, oftentimes we that's we have to be closer to the bottom in order to say, fine, I will go seek connection. If you're looking in your daughter's eyes right now and you know what her childhood is right now is not enough, you gotta start finding your people that you can sit knee to knee to in your brokenness and see one another. The opposite of addiction is connection. And my experience growing, uh growing up through my recovery process is that yes, I build connection, I built significant more connection, trust, and rapport with my husband and my children. But the connection that I really needed early on was a connection with another alcoholic or addict.

SPEAKER_01 52:56

Community is I think severely underrated. Right? The right community where you can go, just like you said, to seek answers you didn't even know you had or you needed to get answered. Um and I I mean uh I on just the fathering side, I could tell you that once I found community, once this started to grow, it changed the game.

SPEAKER_02 53:24

Yeah.

SPEAKER_01 53:25

So absolutely it's modeling.

SPEAKER_02 53:27

So this is the other thing that I think is so important, especially when we're talking about generations. We got a thing in my family, it's called biology. And I don't know how long it's, I mean, even if somebody didn't use substance, they are still have the biology, right? I work with a lot of religious families that are they're like, well, nobody's drank for generations, but they have this biology inside of them. So when they have a child that uses, then we're off to the races, right? And so I get to make choices now. Again, it's about choosing hard. Like I can choose if I'm gonna model what this is gonna look like. If they are going to know what this looks like when they are done using substance, then I want to be the version that they look at and say, okay, I know I can do this because she does it. She did it. And so every day, really, even with parenting, like I get to decide what I'm modeling for my kids. And I want to model um vulnerability and communication and honesty and the fact that life is hard and and I know it's hard, and I'm gonna model for you what it looks like for me to, you know, pull my bootstraps up and do hard. And I think for parent, for dads specifically, like that is what our kids need. They need to be modeled what vulnerability and courage and and hard looks like. So when it happens to them in their life, they are more prepared and not unprepared.

SPEAKER_01 54:52

Yep. So true. Literal uh statement that that uh I've been working on specifically this last month is allowing my daughters to see the human that I am, right? Um, because uh that connection, I I'm I'm the guy you're talking about, by the way. Like I'm the inside of my head, don't need to talk to anybody. Like that's me. And so it's it's definitely easy to see how that can transform a situation with opioids, with with uh alcohol, with whatever in that in in that mindset.

SPEAKER_02 55:29

Well, and I think when you asked me what did I need from my dad that I didn't get, and I said for him to acknowledge that there was a problem, like what I'm basically saying is I needed my dad to be vulnerable. Yeah, I needed my dad to be honest, I needed my dad to drop all of that presence about himself in my presence, right? So that I felt seen and he felt seen. I needed that vulnerability.

SPEAKER_01 55:55

It's a vulnerability that we are all working on. Yeah, 100%. Jennifer, I could probably sit here for another two hours. Um, not gonna do that to you. I I just I can't thank you enough for getting on here and giving us that perspective that is just so crucial. What our daughters are seeing from us, even without us saying words.

SPEAKER_02 56:18

Most in fact, more by your actions and less by your words.

SPEAKER_01 56:23

Absolutely.

SPEAKER_02 56:24

That's what's really yeah.

SPEAKER_01 56:25

It's it's incredible. Uh, give us just a little bit of where people can find you, um, where they can find your work and the things that you're uh you're getting into nowadays.

SPEAKER_02 56:35

Yeah. So my website is www.riseaddictionlc.com, the lccent for life coaching, riseaddictionlc.com. And I have so about the first six years after I got sober, I worked in the treatment field. I worked in an outpatient program that I absolutely loved. I was part of the executive team there. But because of all of my different hats and experiences I've had in this ride-called life, I just kept feeling this pull that I needed to work with the families and I needed to help families untangle this things from a family perspective. Um, because what I know is this isn't just about the addict, right? And the addict isn't gonna be able to just get sober and everyone is gonna be at peace and live the best life. And so my goal now is to do a couple of things that I spoke about, which is bring community. Um, once a week I do coaching calls with people all over the country. And and my goal is to yes, teach them about how to heal from addiction, but the main priority is to create community and and get people, like-minded people together that that um maybe they aren't able to go next door and talk to their neighbor. So uh that's the first thing to do. And then the second thing I do is I just work individually with people and and and that can look different based on where somebody is in this journey. Um, it can look like I have a child that is out of control or a spouse that is out of control, and I'm figuring out how, you know, where do I lovingly detach? What boundaries do I set? What does that look like? You know, that place I can also help people uh when somebody is thriving, if you have a loved one that is thriving, but somehow the codependency is still, you know, play in a front row street or uh in your brain. So um it doesn't really depend on where we are as far as the addict goes. It really comes from a family perspective of how do we all heal, right? And and and if for any listeners that are listening to me, like the addict getting sober is only the very bottom of the pyramid of things that are going to, right? Again, addiction, uh substance is the problem, not the solution to the problem. And so oftentimes as family, we think they just need to get sober and then get back into line and everything will be okay. And that is the last thing, right, that that needs to happen in true family healing. And so I help families learn, like not only can they heal for themselves, right, and find the peace and the joy that they deserve, but also how do I continue to contribute to that healing in a manner that's actually going to help my addict heal too?

SPEAKER_01 59:07

All the way through, right? Incredible work, Jennifer. This has been an amazing conversation that I know is going to give just power to those that that need it that may not know that they did. Yeah. And this is just wonderful. So thank you so much for spending time with the daughter community and for spending time with me.

SPEAKER_02 59:27

This has been great. Thank you so much for having me.

SPEAKER_01 59:29

Of course, it was a pleasure. For you guys out there, all the links will be set below in the show notes so you can find Jennifer. Until the next time, we will see you all later. Hey, if you enjoy the Daughter Podcast, you'll love what we've got waiting for you at daughterpodcast.com. As soon as you visit, you'll be prompted to join our new email newsletter. A resource packed with valuable insights, practical tips, powerful perspectives straight from our podcast episodes, and incredible guests. Don't miss out on the chance to join. Strengthen your journey at the club. Visit daughterpodcast.com today and subscribe. Because great dads never stop growing.