Hope & Healing part 2: A mother’s road to recovery
Transcript
Brenda Zane 0:03
Otherwise, everything is just so negative everything it’s about., I gotta let him go, I gotta let him hit rock bottom, and it's just been scientifically proven that you don't have to do that so this isn't just like fluffy feel good., Oh, you know, let's just all like Kumbaya. It is a scientifically proven method to move people towards making changes, and that doesn't necessarily mean they're going to change and go into treatment or change and stop using it could just be a couple of steps towards a healthier lifestyle.
And, and it seems to be an approach that, that the moms in the community in particular, are, are liking because it lets you keep a relationship with your child and we all want that.
Ericka Thomas 0:55
Welcome to the work in your guide to natural ways out of stress, tension and trauma. My name is Ericka Thomas. I'm a certified trauma release exercise provider health coach, and yoga instructor, and I'm fusing my 20 plus years of experience to bring you a new perspective on health and wellness. I believe that true health and healing begins and ends with the nervous system. And that means, for most of us, we need to reintroduce those connections. The great news is that we can, and that's what the work in is all about. Throughout this podcast, you'll find tools, resources, practices, people, and perspectives that will help you add to your own resilience arsenal and shake off the effects of all sources of chronic physical, mental, and emotional stress, my intention is solely to bring you information and empower you with permission to stop working out and start working in the work in is brought to you by kinetic Grace resilience kinetic grace is an online program designed to teach safe self regulation of the stress response through the body using trauma release exercise guided body awareness and the breath. The program includes private instruction, exclusive access to certify providers and 30 days of group classes. And because it's online, kinetic grace is available anywhere you are, enrollment is open now. Visit elemental kinetics.com to learn more.
Welcome back to the work in everyone, I'm your host Ericka Thomas, and this is part two of our interview with Brenda Zane. Brenda is a family advocate parent coach, host of the podcast hope stream and founder of an online community called the stream for moms of kids with substance use disorder. Brenda is the mother of four sons, the oldest of who has struggled with an addiction to a high risk lifestyle and illicit opioids and benzodiazepines for over five years. After nearly losing her son to multiple fentanyl overdoses, Brenda left corporate America to serve other families dealing with the fear, confusion and helplessness. Parents usually feel when they have a child who's misusing drugs or alcohol.
Brenda is a Mayo Clinic Certified Health and Wellness Coach parent coach and board member for sky's the limit Fund, a nonprofit, which transforms the lives of youth in crisis, and their families by providing access to wilderness therapy programs and post treatment coaching services.
If you missed part one, I highly recommend that you go back and check out the first part of our interview where Brenda shares her story from the beginning. And make no mistake, this story is not unique. Addiction can come in so many different forms, legal, illegal socially acceptable or not socially acceptable all substance use, is a form of external regulation.
In fact, everything that we do everything that we eat everything that we drink everything that we take. It all affects the nervous system. And that's part of what makes Brenda's story so interesting because you can really see the progression from just a little bit of stress in someone's life, to really toxic levels, and what that can do to the body. As we continue our discussion today, you are going to hear about some of the tools that were helpful in Brenda's recovery from that highly escalated very toxic level of stress, that she was living in, we discuss therapy Al-anon, The craft system. And then, of course, her community, this stream, and how that community is helping moms of teens in and out of active substance abuse in amazing and powerful ways. So let's get started with our work in today.
Brenda Zane 5:44
Unless you have a very intentional practice or a guide to help you bring that stress down, it just keeps building, it's like the death by 1000 paper cuts, it's just right. It just keeps going and going and so I think it's all of those little incidences where, you know, you're having these crazy situations happen in your home where you're the kid that you've known your whole life, that's fun and cuddly and happy is all of a sudden throwing things and hiding things and not coming home for a week at a time and you're just so shocked like how could this be happening, that your stress level is just, I mean, I see you know moms and their shoulders are just up around their ears and, you know, they're either they've gained 100 pounds or they've lost 100 pounds like there's, there's all of this stuff that just manifests in your body and it's, it's so so toxic.
Ericka Thomas 6:52
Yeah, and there isn't really a straightforward explanation for why an individual reacts, the way they do. For me, the phone calls of phone was where I actually noticed the change, like the physical change that happened in my body. And then I realized why, and it wasn't even a phone ring, it was like the buzz of the text and that was it. That was all it took. And I actually was, I found myself holding my breath and then I thought about it, how many times a day do I hold my breath and for how long,
Brenda Zane 7:29
And I hear you on the phone thing my son still he's in a good place now but when I see a text from him that says hey can you talk, you know I just my body goes into this stress response or the other day, I walked, I was somewhere and a guy walked by me with the cologne on that my son wore during those years.
And I just froze because that smell just brought me instantly back to all of the horrific things that happened during those years, and, and the same thing will happen when I see these kids walking around with the Super, you know, they're super skinny and they have their jeans down around their butt and the belt and you know the baggy t shirt, and they're there is at least here in Seattle, I don't know what it is like anywhere else but there is a look like you can tell, I know when I see that kid I know exactly what's going on with him, because I saw it for years and years and so when I see that or I smell that cologne or yeah the phone. You do your body just immediately like flares up and it's like well, protect, protect, protect, protect you.
Ericka Thomas 8:43
Yeah, there is no in between. It's not like a little bit, I mean, it doesn't matter, it's all or nothing. In your story, you talk about finding a therapist, I'm wondering, when in your process were you able to do that, and was that the first thing that you saw that started you kind of back taking care of yourself. How did that come about and what kinds of things did you pull out of that experience.
Brenda Zane 9:11
Well, so I did not start seeing a therapist until my son went to wilderness, which baffles me at this like now I look back on that and I think, Wow, that was a mistake. I should have started seeing a therapist. When we first started, you know, seeing things go off the rails but I didn't. But when he went to wilderness therapy, the program that he was at had recommended that you know all of us, as many of us that could, in the aftermath. Get a therapist and so I started seeing somebody here locally and she was connected with his, with my son's therapist out in the field in his wilderness program which was fabulous because then at least we sort of had this little unit that we were all connected.
And so I think she did talk to me about self care, it's still at that point I didn't really understand what that was, I just thought it was sort of like therapists talk. It was like yeah, I don't know. I'll, I'll do something. I honestly did not understand what she was talking about and so I think you just, you're so focused on saving your child that anything else becomes secondary to that.
So what I learned from seeing a therapist at that point was my role in. Not that I caused this by any means but the role that I played in helping him get out of it. Because there were things that I could do that would really kind of keep him in his state of mind and in that lifestyle or there were things that I could do that could help encourage him to change. So that was a lot of the work that I did and just, you know, to have somebody to talk to who wasn't trying to fix anything necessarily but just listened to me. And I just remember sitting on her couch and just bawling most of the time I was paying somebody $150 an hour just to cry.
You know I would leave my job in the middle of the day I'm getting an Uber go to my therapist who was like 10 minutes away cry for an hour and I always had to bring makeup on the days when I would see her because then I'd have to go in the bathroom redo my makeup go back to work, pretend like nothing happened. It was insanity, it was complete insanity, but, but she did just let me cry
And then at a point where my son had left. He was not in treatment he was living back here in Seattle and active addiction, we were not seeing each other we would go weeks without hearing from him so they talk about the little t's the, you know, the 1000s of little T's is every day that you don't hear from your child and you see these pictures on social media that he's selling his shoes to try and get money to buy drugs and, you know, you're just like, Is he alive today and the only way I would know that he was alive is if I would see something on social media, or, you know, at one point we did have him on our phone plan so I would see like okay his phone was on today, so that's a good sign.
So that's the stress that you're living under for it right, weeks and weeks at a time, and, and finally she said, My therapist said to me, Brenda, You can't keep living like this, you have to have a plan, like you can't just live with your son just out there roaming around and not knowing. And at this time he was 17. So this wasn't, it's not like he was 25 years old, he was 17 years old, almost 18.
And so she helped me kind of formulate a plan to reconnect with him to keep our relationship, not enable him and do all of that but just to keep a relationship with him for, if for nothing else my own sanity. She's like, I don't know if it's gonna do anything for him but you need to be able to live and you need to have some sanity. So I really as much as people can, I say yes get a coach get as much help as you can for your kid but get a therapist for yourself because you've got to have somebody like that anchor. If you could go back to somebody who's seen somebody who's not emotionally attached to your child that can keep your head above water during, during all this.
Ericka Thomas 13:42
Yeah, yeah, that's, yeah that is so important to, to be able to talk to somebody who's a little bit separated from the situation with you. The hardest part I think, for parents of teenagers who are going through this substance abuse and addiction, is that there's a lot of messaging in in things like Al Anon and at least in my experience, where they want you to let go of hope for your child. And because we're talking here today about teens. That is not possible. you have a teenager that you are legally responsible for, and have expectations for.
And when, when I was doing Al-anon through the program, my daughter was involved with, I was actually appalled by the things that they were telling us. That, basically, we shouldn't hold on to hope at all. And I understand, objectively looking back, I think their purpose there was to establish some boundaries for exactly what you were talking about Brenda, about being able to function as a human being yourself, without being dragged into this, this codependent relationship right, very toxic relationship with your child. I get that but they're still a child, they're still, they're still a dependent, even though they don't want to be dependent on you, and you still carry that responsibility.
And there's always that guilt in that second guessing like, what should I have noticed, when should I have seen this happening, what could I possibly have done different to make this a different outcome and that kind of thinking can be so self destructive. Yes, that's the kind of thing that a therapist can pull you out of. I'm not so sure that the al-anon and AA world pulls people out of that circular thinking. I think it's possible they just reinforce it because it's about, let's tell the story the same story over and over and over again. In my personal opinion, totally an educated and not a professional therapist that is less than helpful when you're trying to down regulate a stress response. staying there doesn't do much.
What, what was your experience and opinion in that? You know, I asked you about what kind of support system, there was, I mean, outside of your family if the only support system is a and Al Anon and those kinds of things. Was that helpful for you? And would you recommend that for parents?
Brenda Zane 16:31
Yeah, it was, it was helpful in some ways, so I'll clarify how it was, it wasn't helpful what was helpful was for me to sit in a room, and this obviously was 2017. So, not COVID, so I had the ability to walk into a room with 30 other parents who understood what it was like to have a child like this, and that was invaluable at the time because I didn't have that anywhere else. And so, just for that just to be able to sit in a room and look at other faces that look like mine and say, Okay, I'm not the only one and that was hugely valuable, and I spent a lot of time in those meetings, just absorbing that I don't even know that I heard the words that were being said in the meeting, sometimes, you know, I remember going to a meeting one time and it was the day that I had to tell my son he couldn't live with us anymore and he was, I think a week away from turning 18 You know, And at that point it was like okay he basically is 18 and I can do that. You can't do that when they're 15 or 16. And I remember saying that to somebody, and she just said, Okay, have a seat, you know, she didn't freak out, she didn't react so for that it was extremely helpful.
Then as I started sort of absorbing absorbing the words. I was getting a feeling of like, you just have to protect yourself, you know, and, and I think there's a distinction between detach and protect yourself and take care of yourself, and at the same time. Here's how you can keep a relationship with your child while staying healthy because there is a way to do that. And I think that's the big difference is I didn't necessarily hear that from the the Al Anon group that I was in. And I think it does help a lot of people and I mean there's people that have been there 20 years and God bless them for running those meetings and holding that space for people that need it and if that if that works for you and your family that I am 100% for it. It wasn't a message that sat right with me.
And again I wasn't processing everything really well so I don't want to say that I went, you know that I could do a deep dive analysis on Al Anon because it was fairly surface level, level for me. I was really there for just like the support of knowing that there were other people, but I was getting kind of twinges of that like, and that didn't sit well with me and.
So I do remember that's what when my therapist was like, Listen, you can still have a relationship with him. You don't have to like this detach and let him go and let him hit rock bottom. She's like you don't have to do that that's kind of the, you know, the approach of the 50s and 60s were now in the, you know 2000s There's, there's new stuff, there's new stuff out there. And so that's what I learned was, you know, in more of the CRAFT which is a Community Reinforcement and Family Training is how to keep yourself healthy. So you're not just at the whim of your child who's struggling with addiction. You keep yourself healthy and detached emotionally in the way that his problems, didn't have to be my problems. And I had to learn that big distinction, but to do it in a healthy way, and keep a relationship with him, and then that way I could live and have peace with my own body It was still stressful like it's still stressful when you know your kids out there living on the streets and doing drugs, but it's a step up from the complete, let it go and just let whatever is going to happen is going to happen, I couldn't I just couldn't live with that.
Ericka Thomas 20:37
Yeah, yeah, yeah, that's brilliant. So can you talk a little bit more about the CRAFTprocess, and is that something that you have applied in the Stream, because it feels a lot like that when we're in that community.
Brenda Zane 20:53
Yeah, so craft is Community Reinforcement and Family Training, and it's basically an approach that, to dealing with somebody who's struggling with substance use and addiction to say, this is, this is part of them. It's not all of them. There's still more to them than the addiction that's one piece of them. And its approach that helps families and parents learn how to change themselves and their approach to their child and to their situation. That is loving and empathetic and keeps the relationship and helps motivate that person to change their behavior instead of forcing them, or threatening them or bribing them or trying to manipulate them into changing their behavior. Which we all know doesn't work because if that worked there would be no addicts in the world.
So, it's, it's an approach that was unfortunately we didn't I didn't find it, while my son was younger, I really found it through my therapist and when he was toward the end closer towards his overdoses. And then we've definitely applied it I've definitely applied it since then but I do really advocate for that approach within theStream community, which is a community for moms who are struggling with kids with substance use issues, because otherwise everything is just so negative everything is about I gotta let him go, I gotta let him hit rock bottom, and it's just been scientifically proven that you don't have to do that so this isn't just like fluffy feel good Oh, you know, let's just all like Kumbaya. It is scientifically proven method to move people towards making changes and that doesn't necessarily mean they're going to change and go into treatment or change and stop using. It could just be a couple of steps towards a healthier lifestyle.
And, and it seems to be an approach that, that the moms in the community in particular, are, are liking, because it lets you keep a relationship with your child and we all want that, some, some have to have it at a further distance than others. We have some moms in our community that have kids that have been in addiction for 10 or more years. And they, you know, might be living on the streets, or they may just be completely, you know, out of basically out of touch.
But we also have moms who are, you know they have the 15 year old at home, who's smoking weed all day and they don't know what to do and so I don't think there's a mom in the world that says, Oh, I'd rather not have relationship with my kid, your relationship might look different than mine, but it can still be a positive, healthy approach. I won't say healthy relationship because it doesn't, it cannot feel healthy and that's just the reality. I don't want to make it sound like it's all like rainbows and unicorns. But it's a mentality and an approach that you can take that will let yourself kind of stay sane and and keep, keep a door open with your, with your child.
Ericka Thomas 24:28
Yeah, in your, in your journey with your son and with your relationship with your own nervous system and your body, Brenda, how are you doing now? How has your stress level changed with the change in your relationship with your son, and incorporating all of these different kinds of aspects of I want to say health but it's more than, it's not really health it's about, and I don't want to say self care either because it isn't that. We need a new word. Honestly, I don't understand what self care is because the definition I understand is if I mean I took a shower today so I did my self care. That is not quite right, and so you're absolutely right, we needed a different self, different word. Let's put it to the community and find one. But, but I'm really curious about how you have kind of started the process of coming back into a more healthy space within your body.
Brenda Zane 25:44
I would say that today I am drastically, like if I had to put a number on it between one and 100 I would say, 110% healthier than I was. I do still struggle with SIBO which. That is another episode, which is small intestinal bacterial overgrowth. Because, in part because of the stress, not entirely because of the stress. So there's some other issues that cause SIBO but I'm still in treatment for that, because my body went through so much trauma, little T trauma, with, with the stress.
So I'm still dealing with that but when my son got out of the hospital, he was there for a month in the hospital and then we moved him in with his dad and he went through a partial hospitalization program and intensive outpatient and, you know, on and on and on but at least he was in a safe container. And when I got back to my life basically after, after he was in that safe container. I started really applying Yoga.
I experimented with Yoga before but I was kind of like, and I know you used to be like this like it had to be really hard core or it wasn't anything. So I started just because I was still in so much pain I couldn't really do anything else I started stretching working on flexibility. Trying to try to do some yoga trying to do some bar work, doing a little bit of Pilates. Just because I that was basically it was just teeny tiny bits at the beginning.
Starting a whole new relationship with food, because food was the enemy, you know, and it's kind of as the enemy, only because of the SIBO. But just, I had to shift to say food is not the enemy food is going to be part of my solution. I switched to a plant based diet. I mean I've, I've done so much since 2017. That has really brought my body back into balance.
I feel like, for the most part there still some weird oddities. But I don't have the leg pain. I can basically do whatever I want to do. I have a strong core have a strong, you know back I don't have any physical pain, day to day which is massive. I mean, I think you can overlook how like to wake up and not feel any anything, like, Oh, I feel great. That's, that's huge. When you come from a place where you can't even walk. So, yeah, but it takes a lot of focused work to do that.
Ericka Thomas 28:35
What do you do in the moment when you start to feel your stress response ramping up. Is there anything that you have that is a go to for you in the moment, or are you just kind of maintaining with sort of a consistent practice of staying healthy.
Brenda Zane 28:58
I would say that I'm fairly even, but when I get a whiff of that cologne or if I get the text message, anything that I feel starts that trigger, I have, I just breathe. The breathing for me is what I can use if I'm in the car to red light, if I'm, you know. The great thing about like intentional breathing is, is something that, for me, brings everything down, so I just spend a few minutes doing some deep breathing exercises. And that tends to free up brain space for me to say okay, is this really a threat, or is this really just my son texting me to tell me that he got a promotion at work, which is usually what it is.
But I have to breathe a few times to get to the point where I can process that in my brain and ask myself the question, and that's what I do is I do some breathing and then I say, Is this really a threat. Is this really, like, here's this poor kid walking through the grocery store, like he's, he's not intending to traumatize me. He just happens to wear that cologne. So, you know, it just gives me the brain space to say, to just be real, real about it and process, what's going on, and 99.9% of time, there is no actual threat, it's just a byproduct of what happened, and I need to just work through that.
So yeah, I would say breathing for me and water just drinking water. Yeah, that's amazing. Yeah, magic of, of just having some water in you.
Ericka Thomas 30:38
It's true, it's true. Well, breathing is the fastest way into the nervous system, absolutely the fastest way to affect it in, in one way or the other so we can either calm the nervous system or activate the nervous system just simply by changing how we breathe. So, yeah, so it's, it's a great tool to have. And that's really what we need is just more tools to have because everybody is so different and so if we can add more tools to the toolbox that's great thing.
And speaking of tools. Can you tell us a little bit more about the Stream, and if people are interested in joining that community. What is it, what's it all about. And who is it for?
Brenda Zane 31:28
Sure so the stream is my creation, based out of what I didn't have when I was going through this experience. So I did not have a tribe of other women who kind of, you know, were going through the same thing as I was that I could reach out to and just connect with and say am I sane, Am I losing it. Have you been through this, what did you do when this happened.
And so, after leaving corporate America, I had a long career in advertising and marketing, I got certified as a health and wellness coach to the Mayo Clinic. And I didn't really know what I was going to do with that, I just knew that I liked all of the things that I had done for myself and I wanted to share those things with other people. And then it made the most sense to share those with other people like me who had been through this horrible experience, and it's so isolating with so much stigma that I knew that there was probably 1000s of other moms sitting in their closets crying like I was at the time with a kid who's in, in addiction or struggling or experimenting.
And so I just thought what would sort of the Nirvana have been when I was going through it. And I thought, Man, if I could have had kind of a positive place to go online. Because it's always two o'clock in the morning. Like you never have this need at you know three o'clock on a Saturday. It's always two o'clock in the morning you're freaking out, you need to know that there's other people out there. And so it's just an online space that's positively focused and I think that's a big difference from other support groups that are out there.
This isn't a place to rant and rave and post pictures of you know your child passed out in their car or the drugs that you just found in their closet. It's not that we're trying to fake anything. We're just saying, life can suck a lot. But there's also something positive things that we can do and so we choose to focus on the positive. We do share our struggles and we do share. Hey, I need this. Today, I'm really struggling with this, but I have found that there is a group of women out there who are saying, I am not going to let this take me down, I am going to bring every resource I have to it. I'm going to find other people who've been through it and learn from them and we're going to sort of lock arms and say, Okay, this is what I'm going through.But I'm not going to let it take me down and I'm going to be stronger together with other women who are going through it as well.
It's kind of like you know how there's this movement, where for like the sober curious community, and there she recovers and there's Tempest and there's all these really cool groups for women in particular and I'm sure there's ones for men, I just don't see them, to say, it's cool, it's okay to say I want to stop drinking. And that's always been in the closet and that's always been a shameful thing. And I'm kind of trying to do the same thing with these women who have always had to hide the fact that they had a kid who's struggling in addiction. And it's like, you know what, it's life. It's what happens and we don't, we don't have to put it in the closet, and make it really like, Ooh, I don't want to talk about this.
And so the stream is this place where, you know, Really cool moms, really smart, intelligent women are getting together and saying, holy cow, I didn't know there's all these other people going through the same thing. And let's be positive about it let's have a little bit of fun because life is hard enough as it is. So we have a book club where we, we have a rule that we cannot read books that are anything about treatment or addiction or like anything they just have to be fun. We have guest speakers. You do this amazing yoga class for us. We do live meditation.
It's just, it's just, well you could describe it, I don't know, I'd be curious to hear your, your take on it because you're an advisor member for us. But I just look at it as like, I feel like I'm just opening my home to to this group of women and what would I want to, what would I want that experience to be when they come into my home. I would want it to be lovely. I would want it to be welcoming, I would want there to be some good snacks, you know, just like a really nice place to be together. So that's what I tried to make.
Ericka Thomas 36:12
It really it is all those things except the snacks like virtual snacks.
Brenda Zane 36:22
Well we do say for our Saturday zoom calls bring a snack and a mug of some things until the internet can figure out a way to do virtual snacks, virtual snacks would be amazing.
Ericka Thomas 36:33
Yeah, that would be brilliant. Yeah, for sure. So Brenda I just want to thank you for your time today, and it's a great conversation I always enjoy talking to you, and I love seeing you in the Stream, and your podcast is phenomenal and I highly recommend you have some fantastic guests on there. And it's such a resource and it's a resource, a standalone resource that I wish that I had had 10 years ago, and it wasn't there, there just it was so hard to find out anything about addiction with teens. It just wasn't available. So I think you are doing a phenomenal job, changing the world in a really really beautiful way. And anything I can do to support that is what I want to do so I really appreciate you and I appreciate your time today.
Brenda Zane 37:30
Thank you.
Ericka Thomas 37:31
You're welcome. All right, so how can people get in touch with you, where can they find you?
Brenda Zane 37:37
The best way is just Brendazane.com Just my name, .com, or Hope stream is the name of the podcast you can search for Hope stream in any podcast directories Spotify or Apple or Google, or whatever and everything's at my website, my community, the Stream communities they're the podcast, articles, all that so, so easy.
Ericka Thomas 38:00
Awesome. I'll put all that stuff in the show notes for folks too so. Alright thanks Brenda.
Brenda Zane 38:06
Thank you.
By sharing her own work in, Brenda has embraced her experience in order to create something better, something more hopeful and helpful, positive and powerful for families struggling in the world of substance abuse. Thank you so much for joining me on the work IN. If you like what you heard, and you want to learn more, you can head over to elemental kinetics.com And if you would like to visit the stream community, or listen to Brenda on hope stream, go ahead over to her website Brendazane.com or check the show notes at elementalkinetics.com. Thanks for listening, now let's go work in.
Transcribed by https://otter.ai
I’m Ericka
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