36: How the Sober Parent Effects Children: Jo’s Story
“I’m not broken. I’m okay as I am.” –Jo Huey
Everyone refers to their environment before doing anything because, aware or not, we always seek the approval of others. We are all born with the need and want of belongingness. But if we constantly receive this false message, we forget who we are along the way by trying to be someone acceptable to anybody else but ourselves. Our guest, Joanne Huey has a story to tell that will change your outlook and create a different impression of self-worth. She experienced addiction in her own family which molded her opinion for many years. But after this amazing realization, she finally met with her true self, never to let go again. This transformation led her to be a Personal Change Expert, Neuro-linguistic Programming Practitioner and Inspirational Speaker.
The change in the family is often attributed to the addicted member who successfully walked the path to sobriety. But today’s story is about a daughter, a sister, a partner who was adversely affected not only by the addicted member but also the sober parent but was able to create that change in the family everyone is dreaming about. Join in her journey as she travels back to the past and share what false message about her was constantly sent by her alcoholic father, how this message was reinforced by the sober parent, how this message shaped her as she entered adulthood, and how this message was proven false to its power. Also, discover what the Drama Triangle is about and how to reopen the family’s connectivity. As much as we want to be somebody else to be accepted in the society that we live in, we must never forget that we are valuable and lovable in our own way. We can never be somebody else but we can be a better version of ourselves.
Highlights:
03:44 Jo’s Story
16:28 How the Sober Parent Reinforces False Message
22:21 The Drama Triangle
29:04 Coping with Feelings of Insufficiency the Wrong Way
34:36 Shifting the Dynamic Through the Inner Voice
Resources:
“How to Break Free Victim Consciousness and The Drama Triangle” by Barry and Janae Weinhold
This week’s episode was sponsored by
Sometimes our family mean well but the message we get is just the opposite of what they say and do. Don’t mask your awesomeness with false messages! Share in this life-changing conversation with our host, @TFRSolution and guest #@Joanne_Huey… Share on X
Connect With Jo
Website: www.johuey.co.uk
Email: jo@johuey.co.uk
LinkedIn: https://uk.linkedin.com/in/joannehuey
Twitter: http://www.twitter.com/joanne_huey
Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/johuey_acoa
YouTube: http://www.youtube.com/c/JoHueybusiness
Quotes:
13:48 “I think as children, we noticed a lot-we noticed a lot about what’s going on. And parents, I think, that they’re protecting their kids, but actually it’s quite naive. It’s like, kids are smart. And they they can tell what’s going on whether they directly see things or not.” –Jo Huey
15:38 “I spent the next 20 years trying to fix myself because I thought I was broken.” –Jo Huey
21:12 “I’m not broken. And I’m okay, as I am.” –Jo Huey
24:20 “So when I describe this kind of dynamic, I start by talking about that everyone is, is really trying to do their best. But in families with addiction, one of the things that happens is that everybody in the family is imagining the thoughts and feelings of other people in the family. And they’re acting on their imagination as opposed to checking it out.” –Jeff Jones
26:55 “One of the biggest issues certainly for children of alcoholics, is that, the building of relationships, and sustaining them is really hard.” –Jo Huey
27:53 ” I spent a lot of times ‘customizing myself’. I customize myself into a person that I thought that they were looking for or needed or wanted, because that’s all I knew how to do- mold myself to what my dad wanted… rather than just being me and knowing I will get unconditional love, no matter what.” –Jo Huey
28:53 “When we focus on helping and fixing another, we don’t have to feel our own- just comfort.” –Jeff Jones
32:50 “Once you’ve got quite a long time in your recovery I think it’s much easier to have an objective view and be able to have conversations.” –Jo Huey
45:06 “Whilst change might seem scary, if you take small, little small steps every day, as long as you’re moving forward, then you’ll notice those changes.” –Jo Huey
45:23 “And also for people to understand that they’re worth it and they deserve it. Because they very often probably had very negative messages in their upbringing. And so I think that it’s important not to believe everything that you’ve been told, because everyone’s coming from their own values and beliefs and judgments and perceptions. And so as adults, we get to question that. The benefits of the change way outweigh the effort without a doubt.” –Jo Huey
Got ideas? Perhaps a future podcast? Schedule time with Jeff here: https://meetme.so/jeffjones
Transcriptions
MILESTONE AD:
I’m honored to have Milestones Ranch Malibu sponsor this episode of this podcast. Milestones Ranch is a small 12 bed premier dual diagnosis residential facility that believes that addiction problems in a family do not happen in a vacuum. Everyone has taken on impact and everyone deserves healing from the ramifications of addiction. I’ve experienced milestones myself. I’ve been there, feet on the ground firsthand. Over time of working with this team, I’ve seen the benefit of a group of dedicated professionals supporting families long term positive outcomes, what they call the milestones method. I have the utmost respect for their team and their collaborative model of health. So, check out their website at www.milestonesranch.com.
JEFF: So welcome everyone, this is Jeff Jones on the Podcast Families Navigating Addiction and Recovery. And today, I am having a conversation with Jo Huey and I just learned about Jo Huey. She had an article in recovery today that really caught my attention. And I read and I’m going: “Oh my gosh, like minded person. I need to connect with her.” And I am in Colorado and Jo is somewhere in the UK. So welcome Jo.
JO: Oh, thank you so much. It’s great to be here all the way from Bournemouth in the UK. So I’m right in the south.
JEFF: All right. All right. So if you could just introduce yourself, talk a little bit about who you are.
JO: Yeah, so I’m Jo Huey obviously. I’m a personal change experts and inspirational speaker. I’m also the adult child of an alcoholic. So, two years ago I decided to start my own business. I was in a network meeting, I was running and someone said to me: “Jo, you’ve got a story. You should tell it.” And that was kind of really the beginning of my journey and my passion in terms of trying to help other people like me that have lived for someone’s addiction and to try and support them in the best way I could. Because I’ve done over 20 years of self development qualified as a neuro linguistic programming practitioner and done various other bits. And I thought, you know what? I could put this to use and hopefully inspire other people so that they know that change is possible.
JEFF: And someone just said directly to you Jo, you have a story.
JO: Yes.
JEFF: And you should tell it.
JO: Yeah.
JEFF: Wow. How powerful.
JO: It was. It really was. Well powerful enough for me to think: “Okay, yeah. I’m going to do it.” [laughs]
JEFF: Alright, so can you talk a little bit about that story?
JO: Yeah. So, I was probably around the age of six, I think when my father, his drinking I would say, he was always a social drinker but he began drinking a lot more heavily. Obviously it didn’t just go from social drinking to, you know, alcohol dependence, but my father and my mother had lost a child. And I think that was kind of a trigger for him, even though I’m aware that there was probably other stuff going on for him and what had happened in his past. I’d never actually ever met his parents, so I don’t really know that much about them. He never talked about them, so it’s kind of a bit of a mystery. I know that he didn’t have the most amazing relationship and so yeah. So, I guess I actually didn’t see my dad drinking an awful lot. He was obviously very secretive or hide his drink, very often he would sit in his car and drink, you know, in our driveway. He just sit there and drink and listen to music or he’d sit in the bedroom and, you know, eat his dinner in there. And it’s like really isolated himself off.
So even though he wasn’t a massive part of my life, when he was in it, it was very dramatic, you know, we were all walking on eggshells. So I live with my mom, my dad and my older sister and we were all very afraid of him. He was an ex military man, so very strict. He has very high standards and expectations. Everything had to be a certain way, very controlling personality, very opinionated, but he was also a very caring man, a very kind man. Someone that really loved my mom to death, you know? And I think that this Jekyll and Hyde character that kind of happens as part of the alcohol dependence, you know, it was a real flip in terms of his character because without the drink he was one person and with it he was another. Yeah, very confusing as a child. There was periods of times where he didn’t drink, but I don’t really remember him as being part of my life whether he was drinking or not. And I think when he did try and sort of emerge in self into the family, it felt really uncomfortable. So, because I guess we kind of really didn’t know him, but also because he was very guarded. He didn’t show any emotion really. Couldn’t get close to him.
And so he kept that distance really. He created that because I was always longing for this acceptance, this support, this, you know, I’m his amazing daughter and he loves me no matter what, but it was very conditional love and feel good then all sort of thing. And I think one of the things that really I would say has caused me the most damage from him anyway is the words. When are you going to change?
JEFF: Wow.
JO: If I heard that sentence, once I heard it a million times.
JEFF: So he would ask you that?
JO: Yeah, all the time. All the time.
JEFF: So what did he want you to change?
JO: Whatever it was that he found difficult to live with I think, that’s how I’ve managed to get my head around it. I think it was just, he really struggled with coping with difference maybe or I didn’t do what he wanted me to do in the way he wanted me to do it. I didn’t help my mum enough. I wasn’t a good girl. I didn’t clean my bike well enough. It could have been anything to be honest with you.
JEFF: Yeah.
JO: Why did I answer back? Why did I ask questions? Why did I do this? So ultimately I think that was at the crux of my lack of self esteem, and confidence, self worth all came from that.
JEFF: Yeah, oh my gosh! And for a child I could really see where it’d be easy for a child to imagine that Dad’s drinking is my fault.
JO: Oh, yeah. Without a doubt.
JEFF: Oh, ouch.
JO: Yeah.
JEFF: I’m sorry.
JO: For me, obviously my translation of those words was, I’m not okay. I’m not okay as I am.
JEFF: Yeah.
JO: And coming from my parents, well obviously that’s Gospel. I’m going to take what this person who is my parent, who is my elder, I am going to trust and believe what they say.
JEFF: Right.
JO: Which was obviously total rubbish, because he’s coming from a place of his own problems and he’s coming from that place. Unfortunately as a child, obviously I didn’t understand any of that. I do now as an adult, but as a child I’m like, nothing I do is good enough, that’s all I ever remember feeling, nothing I do is good enough for him. You know, I remember him asking me and my sister to clean our bikes. I kid you not, I cleaned this bike within an inch of its life. It was sparkling. And I said: “Dad, Dad, I’ve done it. I’ve finished.” And he came out to inspect it like it was some military operation. And no, no, it’s not clean enough. No, you need to do this, that and the other. What I learned then was I don’t know what’s good enough.
JEFF: Yeah – yeah. You doubted yourself.
JO: Yep.
JEFF: Oh my gosh Jo! Just listening to you, I can so relate to, you know, these kind of the internal self talk or the internal dialogue of not trusting self, or hearing one thing outside of us and assuming that is true and assuming that like we’re the problem and like doubting ourselves.
JO: Yeah. And then the knock on effect of that as an adult is that there’s a whole load of self doubt, low self esteem, not trusting myself, constantly having to ask everybody else for their opinion about what I’m doing and whether or not I’m doing things the right way because I’m doubting any decision I made.
JEFF: Right. And part of the doubt and I’m kind of like putting some of my own story on to your story and if this doesn’t fit, please let me know. But some of the doubt almost seems to be around for me to have the love and connection with this other person, I need to value what they’re telling me even if inside of me there’s this voice that says: “Oh my god Jeff, you’ve been through this before, da da da da da.” I need to kind of squelch that and believe this other thing to where I can have this idea of getting love from the outside.
JO: Yeah, it’s a total conflict. And I think it took me a long, long, long time to start building up my gut instinct and start listening to myself.
JEFF: Yeah.
JO: It really took a very long time. And, you know, to trust because I was actually, I think quite sort of spiritual and connected to myself. From an early age, I had lots of deja vu’s and just sort of these gut instinct things, but I was constantly in a sense told or sort of, they were dismissed and sort of minimized and oh, it’s just nothing, you know? And even when as a child I experienced things and I saw things happening like my dad’s hallucinations and various things like that. Again, it was all, no, no, you didn’t really see that. Oh no, Dad was just tired or, so talk about confusing messages.
JEFF: Yeah – yeah. Oh my gosh Jo! I’m just like my hand is raised, but so for you and your story, how did you start to question that or see pass that or when you think back, like how did your healing process start, like what were the signs or the?
JO: I think well, I guess when I was younger I knew stuff wasn’t right, but I had no power or control to change it. I isolated myself off quite a lot just so I could get away from the drama and the things that were going on. And then I think that obviously I knew how my dad’s behavior, again, some of it was very odd and it just didn’t feel right to me, but as a child you’re too young to sort of say anything. About the time I was 16 he kicked me out of the house, which again, I knew it wasn’t like a very loving and kind thing for a parent to do that to a child. So, I recognized at that age, you know, and I think myself and my oldest sister were quite often, sort of telling my mum, my dad had periods where he didn’t drink and we will usually the ones to be saying to her, dad’s drinking again, dad’s drinking again.
So I think I did have, you know, I think as children we would notice a lot. We notice a lot about what’s going on in parents. I think that they’re protecting their kids but actually is quite naive. It’s like kids are smart and they can tell what’s going on whether they directly see things or not. And so for me, one of the big parts of my sort of personal development transformation happened when I was in my early twenties, I really struggled at school with friendships, mainly in secondary school, which was the last school I went to. And I really struggled to be accepted by people. I was very opinionated, didn’t have any tact, quite aggressive because my anger was coming out from what I’d experienced. And I hadn’t talked about it openly to anybody.
JEFF: Right.
JO: In my early twenties, I realized I was really struggling more so with friendships. And it was a particular conversation I have and I can remember the day very clearly, a particular conversation I had with a friend and I’d hurt her with something I said. And I thought, this can’t keep happening. I don’t feel good about it, but I feel powerless to stop it. Stop my behavior. And I think that was really the start of me, certainly start in my therapy sessions and looking to change my life. And unsurprisingly, all I felt I needed to fix myself because all I’d heard was, you’re not okay as you are. You need to be someone else. You need to act differently. You need to think differently. So unsurprisingly, I spent the next 20 years trying to fix myself because I thought I was broken.
JEFF: Oh my gosh. Oh my gosh. I so relate to your story and, you know, it’s like that message of you, the child are the problem here. It isn’t what anything that I’m doing or not doing, like drinking or not connecting with my child enough that doesn’t have anything to do but the problem is, and so it’s like the drinker a lot of times will not see their own problem and put it on to someone else, like a child. Oh my gosh.
JO: Yeah. Yeah. So, and you can understand why then children think that the drinking can be like their cause of it.
JEFF: Yeah. Yeah – yeah.
JO: I did feel like a problem child. You know, I didn’t seem to do anything right. Even my sober the parent, you know, I struggled to have a good relationship with my mom and I’d never seem to live up to her expectations or behave in a way that she sort of liked or wanted. So, I felt quite rejected from both parents.
JEFF: Wow. Yeah. So the sober parent, you bring up the idea of the sober parent, and just in theory one would think that because the parent who is into the alcohol and inebriated a lot of time and unable to connect with the child, in theory you would think that the other parent would be there to connect with them. But what I hear you saying is that didn’t happen. The sober parent they weren’t able to connect with you deeply either.
JO: No. I mean, I spent a lot of people about their experiences and obviously that they vastly different to mine, but certainly I only speak from my experience and in my experience, I spent a lot of time with my sober parent, because the alcoholic in my life, my dad was very busy drinking and he was at work and he wasn’t part of our lives. So, when I’ve reflected in the last months, I’ve realized how much of an impact the sober parent had on my life because, you know, there’s a lot of codependency that goes on in homes of alcoholism, but my mom was very concerned about what other people think. And so if for example, if I was feeling unwell, she would be more concerned about what the school would think, what the teachers would think than checking in with me to see actually what’s up, what’s going on? Why aren’t you feeling well? Or even if she thought that I was putting it on, she didn’t try and understand. She would always be thinking and putting other people first, which was really hard.
JEFF: It sounds like Jo would reinforce, you know, some message that I, the child and the problem here and would reinforce that the external, that person outside of me, their opinion is more important than my own perspective than my own intuition, than what I see with my own eyes, than what I hear with my own ears.
JO: Yeah. Exactly that.
JEFF: Oh my. So it’s like for you, how did you start to see that that was not the case, because the sober parent here, they reinforce this belief that wasn’t true.
JO: Yeah.
JEFF: But somehow you were able to get past that too.
JO: Yeah. I think that the answer is a lot of therapy. [laughs]
JEFF: A lot of therapy.
JO: It’s what helped me because it helped me understand what went on in my specific home. I understand more about things like the drama triangle. I understand more about the dynamics in the home and my anger and things like that. But it took me a long time because recovery, it’s a timeline. Any self development is a journey. We’re not just going to get there, you know, in a week or whatever. It’s taken a long time for this damage to happen and it’s going to take a long time to sort of unravel some of this stuff. And I think if you go into it, inner sense I probably did go into it, when am I going to be fix? Because I have that mindset, you know, when am I going to be fixed? It’s taken forever. I mean, when is it going to happen? Is it like next week? That kind of leads into what I was always hearing. When am I going to change? So I had to, you know, I always used to say to my dad, tomorrow Daddy, tomorrow. So it was this, when am I going to be all okay? I realized after a long time, actually I’m not broken and I’m okay as I am and I’ve heard all this, you know, beliefs and values and things from my parents that actually aren’t true for me as an adult.
JEFF: Right.
JO: They’ve come from their own set of values and beliefs and that’s not how I want to live my life. I don’t want to, you know, what our parents say to us isn’t fact. And I think as children we obviously believe it because they’re our parents. But actually on reflection as an adult, we can think, actually my mom had some funny ideas, or my dad had some really strange beliefs and that’s really not right.
JEFF: Yeah – yeah. So Jo, I want to circle back to you mentioned the drama triangle.
JO: Yeah.
JEFF: And so I lit up when you mentioned that because I totally get that. So do you want to talk a little bit so for listeners who aren’t familiar with the drama triangle, can you?
JO: Yeah. Funnily enough recently I was recommended a book, How to Break Free of the Drama Triangle and Victim Consciousness. And I love it because it’s really little book with not too many pages and it’s really explains it quite nicely. Hopefully in a succinct way, it’s about the dynamics that happen in a situation. So you’ve got the victim, there are all three different roles, you’ve got the victim, the persecutor, and the rescuer, and everyone’s fighting for the victim role and this sort of interaction that happens can change in a conversation. So one person can move from one position to another in a conversation. For example, the rescuer might see someone in a situation, a difficult situation, maybe they fallen over, let’s keep it simple. They would be, in this example, the victim. so the rescuer goes over and helps the person up because they can see that they’ve fallen over and, you know, rescues them from this situation. And in this example, let’s say the person that’s fallen down was quite proud and stubborn and they’re like: “Get off me. I’m fine. I can get up by myself. I don’t need you to help me.” They then move from the place of a victim to the persecutor role.
JEFF: Right.
JO: And then what happens is the person that was rescuing goes into the victim place because then they say: “Oh, I was only trying to help you. I thought what I was doing was a good thing and I thought you needed my help.” And then the persecutor start feeling bad about how they reacted and then they move into the rescuer position. And so it goes on.
JEFF: Right. When I described this kind of dynamic, I start by talking about that everyone is really trying to do their best, but in families with addiction, one of the things that happens is that everybody in the family is imagining the thoughts and feelings of other people in the family. And they’re acting on their imagination as opposed to checking it out. Like in your example, wow, you fell over, can I help you up? They don’t ask, can I help you up? But Jo, I was really touched too with your kind of naming right away. It’s like everybody is trying to be the victim, you know? And so there’s a little bit of scrapping around or are fighting, no, no, no, I’m the victim kind of thing. I think one of the things that really, really helped me was to see that everyone is really trying to do their best there and that in families with addiction, it’s like communication and really being honest about our thoughts and feelings and sharing them with other people. It’s not safe to do that.
JO: No, it’s not.
JEFF: And as a child, I mean your story really shines light on that, that it’s not safe to really say what you see happening or what you’re thinking or how you’re feeling. And so oftentimes, and it’s like I grew up with a similar story, but it’s like children, they assume this is normal.
JO: Yeah. They don’t think it’s different.
JEFF: Right. They have nothing else different to compare it to. And so in less, they learn different, they grow up and they use the same type of interpersonal, relational skills in communicating with others, and relationships, and what relationships look like. It’s like that’s all their tools.
JO: Yeah, exactly.
JEFF: That’s all they know.
JO: Yeah. So it’s hard to build, you know, one of the biggest issues I think for certainly for children of alcoholics is that, you know, the building of relationships and sustaining them is really hard.
JEFF: Is really hard.
JO: Yeah.
JEFF: And, you know, taking the risk really when there is a problem or a riff for something like that, being able to say: “Hey, there’s a problem here for me.”
JO: Yeah.
JEFF: Because one, the child will think, oh my gosh, if I say anything, I’m going to lose the love of that person outside of me. And as a child that was our parent and we needed our parents to survive.
JO: Exactly. Yeah.
JEFF: So, wow.
JO: Yeah. I think for me, again kind of typical knowing that I wasn’t good enough. You know, I spent a lot of times, I use the word customizing myself in my relationships, in my intimate relationships with partners. I customize myself into a person that I thought that they were looking for or needed or wanted because that’s all I know how to do, mold myself to what my dad wanted or what my mum wanted, you know, or at least try to, rather than just being me and knowing I will get unconditional love no matter what.
JEFF: Right.
JO: That’s how I experience everyday was conditional and I wasn’t going to get love without doing this, that or the other. And so that then carried on into my adult relationships.
JEFF: Yeah.
JO: Always trying to rescue them, always trying to help them and fix them. And that wasn’t my job, but I felt it was and made me feel useful, sort of took away from my problems. I could focus on them helping and fixing them.
JEFF: And then when we focus on helping and fixing another, we don’t have to feel our own discomfort.
JO: Exactly. Yeah. Which was too painful. So it was much easier to have my own addictions in terms of workaholism and, you know, shopping. And, you know, I recognize that those were things that helped me cope and get through life because it was, you know, I hated my own company, couldn’t it. Always had to be doing something, seeing friends, being out there, working, whatever it might be. And I use shopping as a comfort because I didn’t feel great about myself.
JEFF: Yeah. Shopping. Wow.
JO: Working gave me a sense of purpose and, you know, I felt important and wanted and, you know, that kind of thing. So, I got something from each of those things that I hadn’t had in my life that I was so desperate for.
JEFF: Right. Right – right. I can relate to the working. You know, putting a lot of energy and to work to get value and not really acknowledging just from the get go, I have value like any other human being has value just –
JO: Being you.
JEFF: Yeah. Yeah – yeah. Just being you. So, I mean on some level I see addiction in the family as not so much for children, but for family members addiction in the family as a gift to be able to actually look at the situation a little bit deeper to how am I being impacted by this situation and how can I really contribute to the family, to my life, to my community in a deeper way? What would that look like for me? Like that can seem like an odd question, but I think really when people can stay with that and embrace that, it’s like that depth allows them to not only have a deeper relationship with themselves but with people in their family. And when they do that, it’s like, then we can take risks and get underneath conversations that just are about like the drama triangle.
JO: Yeah. I think from my experience it is very hard for families to see what’s happening to them, if they’re in the midst of the drama?
JEFF: Right.
JO: Is there, you know, living with somebody that’s drinking, I think really hard to have that distance. And I know obviously people go to support groups like Al-Anon and they encourage you to have a live whether the drinker is drinking or not and things like that. Having open conversations with them about things. I think as well the family sometimes struggle in terms of how to approach that and it can come across more judgmental than it can be in a way of opening up the conversation. Often because they’ve got so much anger and resentment because of all the fallout that’s been created by the addicts actions.
JEFF: Yeah.
JO: And often people that are in the family, if it’s a partner, they’ve either got to accept the drinker as they are or leave. Often the family are trying to fix and control the drinker, which rarely works. I think, you know, once you’ve got quite a long time in your recovery, I think it’s much easier to get that, have an objective view and, you know, be able to have conversations. Because even though, well my father was obviously the alcoholic in my life, but just over two years ago my sister started having an addiction with alcohol as well. And so, I was kind of going for it for a second time. And again, even though I’ve been through everything I’ve been through, it still very hard to have that empathy and things like that. Even though I knew that she was unwell and she’d been going through a tough time and trying to have open conversations with her at that time would not have been possible.
JEFF: Not have been possible. Yeah.
JO: Because a lot of other time she was in blackout, you know. And often when I talk to her now, like she doesn’t even remember, she nearly crashed the car with me and my youngest sister in there, and she doesn’t even remember it.
JEFF: Yeah. Wow. So in your healing process, are there like stages or things that stand out for you that have been helpful to help shift the dynamic, whether shifting the dynamic is just, you know, realizing that your inner voice has value and is more important than whatever’s being said outside of you. Or if healing is finding a way to have a conversation or, you know, really accept or listen or express.
JO: I think for me there are some key things that I did during all the recovery that I’ve done so far and will continue to do that stand out in terms of massive change and how it’s helped me. Therapy was a massive thing for me. And it really helped me to understand about my situation and what I’d been through and also be able to learn how to communicate and express my feelings because I couldn’t have those conversations because I didn’t know how to say it in a way that it would have been received. And I think for me anyway, because I had so much anger and things like that, it would’ve come and did do come across in a tactless way, an aggressive way. It wasn’t in the best way and I wouldn’t have got quality conversations or probably results really from those, you know, I did it lots of times. I had lots of conversations with my mom and it was just a lot of blame and that wouldn’t have made her feel so good. And so, I did a lot of reading of self help books that really helped me a lot.
JEFF: Yeah. The understanding.
JO: Yeah. But it also, unfortunately I took it to the nth degree and ended up getting quite obsessed. And it was a bit like when you look in a first aid book and you’re like, yeah, that’s wrong with me. That’s wrong with me. Oh, I couldn’t [inaudible] And so it was a bit like that after a while of reading too many. But I did learn a lot and I found a really helpful. Then one of the things that will always stay with me is how the Al Anon meetings that I went to totally transformed how I felt in terms of being connected basically. I went to Alanon when I was probably mid 30’s and I felt like a fraud going there because my dad had died previously, you know, years before. And I thought, well, he’s not in my life anymore, you know, should I go? Anyway honestly, the best decision I ever made because what it gave me more than anything was a sense of connection. The one thing that I really struggled with my whole life, so I walked through those doors. I went to some meetings and I heard people and I was like, oh my God, these people are just like me. I’m not weird. I’m not odd. I’m not like crazy, maybe a little bit, but, you know, these people was just like me. And I can’t tell you the way it lifted off of my shoulders. I was just like, oh my God, I can only liken it to a parent talking to a parent and then get in where they’re coming from with their struggle is bringing up a child. You know? It was that sort of connection where you know that the other person just totally gets you.
JEFF: That human connection, you know, with likeminded people. I mean, one of the things that I think about for myself is I used to do a group in a treatment center. And it’s like at the end of the group, like I would start by handing out some information that I thought would be helpful and then we would talk about it. And at the end of the group, I would ask like, what’s been the most important thing for you? What are some takeaways here? And more than half of the time what I heard was, oh my gosh, when that other person across the circle, when they started talking, I just, you know, I knew I wasn’t alone in the world anymore. And I need to get your phone number and we need to continue. And it’s like from my standpoint, I thought, geez, this thing that the little handout or the piece of information or the discussion would be so helpful, but no. And so it really likes this like minded thing, you know, really connecting with people.
JO: Yeah, definitely. I think that it’s just that understanding. It’s just, you know, cause I’d felt so disconnected in my life that, you know, it wasn’t, well my dad wasn’t there to understand me, but my mom just didn’t get me at all. So, it was really powerful for me that was. And then sort of latterly in that sort of towards the end of my major sort of shift in terms of change, I learned about neuro linguistic programming and I learned a technique called Emotional Freedom Technique, which I use with my clients. And it totally transformed my thinking. Understanding a lot more about how other people think, assumptions we make, all sorts of stuff. And so those are the key things I would say has had the biggest impact on the change where I’ve been through and the transformation that is made to my life.
JEFF: And so Jo these tools that you mentioned, NLP, and the emotional freedom technique and stuff like that, were they helpful also in healing your relationship with your mom? The other parent?
JO: Yeah. I think that also what happened as a result of my learning was I was then educating them about what I was learning about. And it helped them to understand things more and they started to learn and we were able to then better communicate with each other, better listen to each other. And so over the years they have really benefited a lot from what I’ve learned. And I’ve been able to have better communications with them because I’m calmer. I am able to show empathy. I use tact. I’n not aggressive, I’m assertive and firm. And they feel like they can approach me whereas before they felt that they couldn’t really approach me and I was really aggressive. And so it totally, I transformed, which then transforms the relationships we had and how well we go on.
JEFF: Right. So I mean, one of the things that I’m hearing is that your change led the whole family change.
JO: Yeah.
JEFF: Wow. I mean, that is not the normal story that I hear because so often times it’s like when the person who is the one with addiction, the drinker or whatever the label is there, when they go into recovery and they actually stay clean and sober for a good period of time, they are the ones who end up leading the family into a change process. But in your family it was you.
JO: Yeah, I guess I’ve never really looked at it like that, because I’d heard so much that I wasn’t okay as I am, my only option was like, right, I’m going to be on to change this then. And that sort of where my focus was?
JEFF: Yeah.
JO: You know, my sister ended up having different addictions, food addictions and, you know, other things and obviously eventually drink. And so this was my only option in my mind, you know, I have to do this.
JEFF: Wow. So that was the motivation right there. Something like I have to do this.
JO: Yeah. Because there was no other option. My relationships were really difficult. I didn’t like who I was. You know, I didn’t like the fact that I didn’t like my own company. I wanted to be a nicer and better person because I didn’t feel like I was, and that was based on the fact that I struggled to have and keep friends and also I recognized the more development I did on myself, the more self esteem and confidence I built. And then I started to recognize the behaviors in my intimate relationships and the fact that I was always trying to rescue the partner, which actually when I started getting healthier in my mind, I thought, I don’t want this. I don’t want to replicate what I’ve been through in my life. It’s not my job to rescue these people. You know? I need to accept them as they are. And if they are someone I can accept, then I need to move on. So, you know, there’s the development kind of went on through my life. I started to change in how I was behaving and feeling.
JEFF: I mean, it’s a wonderful story and one of the things that I’m thinking of Jo is like, I’ve heard similar kinds of stories, but oftentimes when someone’s life is not working and their relationships with other people aren’t working, they find another way to cope. You went to therapy. So oftentimes, it’s like they go to an addictive behavior like drinking or something like that as a way to cope, but you didn’t do that. So kudos. Congratulations.
JO: Thank you.
JEFF: Yeah.
JO: Hard work, but very worth it.
JEFF: Yeah. So I’m wondering like right now if there’s, I’m kind of thinking like how best to wrap up this conversation and playing off of your hard work, but very worth it. I’m wondering, is there anything that you can say that you would want other people, other children or adults of, you know, an alcoholic childhood who grew up with that. Is there anything that you would want them to know to inspire them?
JO: Without a doubt. One of the things that I want people to understand, and it’s kind of my mission is to help people to realize that their past doesn’t have to dictate that present and future. And whilst change might seem scary, if you take small, little, small steps everyday or you know, as long as you’re moving forward, then you’ll notice those changes. And also the people to understand that they’re worth it and that they deserve it because they very often have probably had very negative messages in their upbringing. And so I think that it’s important that not to believe everything that you’ve been told because everyone’s coming from their own values and beliefs and judgments and perceptions. And so as adults we get to question that and the benefits of the change way outweigh the effort without a doubt.
JEFF: Wow. Thank you. Thank you so much. And so I would like you to talk about how people can connect with you. I know you’ve written a lot of stuff. You’re in the media. You have your own program to help people. How can people connect?
JO: So I’ve got a website, so it’s www.johuey.co.uk and that’s spelled J-O-H-U-E-Y. I’m also on Twitter, which is Jo_Huey. I’m also on Instagram, which is johuey_ acoa.
JEFF: All right, well thank you very much. I appreciate it.