Aaron Huey: Parenting Teens That Struggle and Learning to Take Care of Yourself First

Join me as I reunite with Aaron Huey, the director of the treatment center my son attended a decade ago.  Aaron and I unravel the complexity of parenting in a time where mental health issues and addiction are a real challenge for so many.  We highlight our experiences, reflecting on my son's journey and emphasizing the pivotal role of family healing and preemptive measures in recovery.  We explore the parent's instinct to fix their children  and the transformative power of acceptance and taking care of ourselves first.
Listen to the Beyond Risk and Back podcast and visit the website to learn more about Aaron and his community.  https://www.parentingteensthatstruggle.com/

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This podcast is for educational purposes only and is not allied or representative of any organizations or religions, but is based on the opinions and experience of Rev. Rachel Harrison. The host claims no responsibility to any person or entity for any liability, loss, or damage caused or alleged to be caused directly or indirectly as a result of the use, application, or interpretation of the information presented herein. Take what you need and leave the rest.

Transcript

Rev Rachel Harrison: 0:47

For this episode I get to talk to Aaron Huey. He was the man who ran the treatment center that my son attended 10 years ago and when we reconnected I was so, so excited to be able to bring him to sole recovery. He continues to help parents, not only of adolescents who are dealing with their kids in addiction, mental health crisis just the complexity of what it is to raise kids down days in a very difficult world but also it helps remind us those of us who have been through it and are continuing to still be on the other side of navigating how do we stay in our self from our holest place, from our most resourced place, to deal with even our adult children who might still be struggling in some capacity? Aaron has some amazing, great insights and wisdom. I know you're going to get a lot out of this episode.

Rev Rachel Harrison: 1:46

Welcome to the Recovery your Soul podcast a spiritual path to a happy and healthy life. My name is Reverend Rachel Harrison. I started Recovery your Soul after having profound changes in my life from my recovery of alcoholism, codependency and control addiction. I was guided to share the tools and principles of spirituality and Soul Recovery to help others transform their lives, as mine was transformed, for us to overcome external circumstances, we need to turn the attention to ourselves, focusing on our inner change and healing. Positive results in our lives will follow. Welcome back to Recovery your Soul. I'm Reverend Rachel Harrison and I thank you for coming and spending your time with me here today. I could not be more excited. I know I always say I'm excited, but this time I really really am so excited because, through the world of spirit, aaron Huey, who was the director of the treatment center that my son went to when he was 17 years old, who now has this amazing podcast Beyond Risk and Back, is here with me today to talk candidly about recovery and kids and all things healing. Welcome, aaron.

Aaron Huey: 3:06

Reverend Rachel. Rachel, it's so good to see you again. I was so excited when we connected I didn't put the name with the face and you were like yo, dude, remember. I was like, oh, you sent me the picture. I was like, oh my God, I'm so excited to just my asteroid has crashed back into your planet and I dig that.

Rev Rachel Harrison: 3:26

I feel exactly the same way. I've told the story about Alex being in rehab and what a powerful experience that was. He was with you for I think six months, five or six months, and he was 17 years old. It was up in Estes Park and it was a profound experience around our family. And just to give some people some context, for those of you who have listened to the podcast, you know all these stories and you know my life in very, very much.

Rev Rachel Harrison: 3:59

But if you haven't heard before, I had my son was 17, 16, 17, and he was just off the rails and my husband and I had separated and in our separation we had gone back to drinking. We had been sober for three years and when we separated we both went back to drinking and Alex went into full free fall around his life and was using marijuana, but mostly he was just completely falling apart and so we didn't know what to do. And we had had a couple of friends who had gone to Fire Mountain, which was Aaron's treatment center, and we scraped up money. We didn't have insurance to cover it and we paid for it out of pocket and we people lent us money, gave us money, we used his college fund and sent him up there. It really saved his life. It really saved his life at that time. But Rich and I were not together and we weren't sober. So when Alex came back from treatment it didn't go the way that we had hoped that it would go, because we weren't whole yet either. The whole family dynamic.

Rev Rachel Harrison: 5:09

Yeah, I was crying with Aaron earlier when I was telling the story.

Rev Rachel Harrison: 5:13

I'm glad I'm holding it together, but I wanted to also tell the part of the story which was when we first went.

Rev Rachel Harrison: 5:20

I remember sitting in the living room of the treatment center and I don't think you were talking to me, I think you were talking to somebody else and I overheard you say it's not if they relapse, it's when they relapse, and that it shook my world because I thought this was going to be it. I thought you were going to fix them. I thought that he would never have another problem again, that this was going to solve everything. And the truth was our family was still unhealthy, that Rich and I were still active alcoholics, that we hadn't done our internal family healing and that Alex is a human being who has his own journey and his own experience. So at that time I didn't know any of those things, and I think that's the part that sometimes, at least for this audience to know that when you're in the midst of it, you're just in the midst of it, it's hard and you want something to fix it and it doesn't really come out that way.

Aaron Huey: 6:21

The fix Right. The recovery industry sells the fix, and the truth of recovery for adolescents that's the first thing I can speak to is a 23% success rate. That's not something that adolescent treatment centers want to publish. Our at Fire Mountain, our success rate was 89%. And there are a couple of reasons why you'll hear treatment facilities say, oh, 100%, we fix it, it's fixed, it's all better now. Because, A that's how they close the sale. B because they're not interviewing the right person after recovery ends.

Aaron Huey: 7:05

Our interviews were with the parents. We didn't want to know from the kids whether or not they were so. We wanted to know from the parents. Or they said because when a parent has spent the money that treatment requires and it is expensive, the prevention is cheap. We always say that ounce of prevention, pound of cure, that's no different in recovery. At the time that your family was with us, I had 30 staff. There are doctors on staff, there are nurses on staff, there are therapists, Then there's your frontline staff, your cook, the maintenance guy. It is not a cheap business to run. My wife and I are driving used cars. This was a mom and pop shop. Now you suddenly have them saying 100% recovery, we guarantee recovery. That's impossible Because, first of all, what they've done is they've limited the concept of what recovery is.

Aaron Huey: 7:56

When I said it's not if they relapse, it's when they relapse, the assumption that is going to be made is brought him here for his drinking and he's going to go home and still drink. Addiction in our minds is I keep doing things to mess up my life and I can't stop. The moment I set foot into the 12-step rooms myself I'm 25 years in recovery now the moment I stepped in my room, that was great no more LSD, no more cannabis, no more alcohol and I immediately was in a toxic relationship, Despite everybody in the room saying, hey, guess where this is going to go? You don't understand. And it was the same old etiquette, right. A year and a half in, I break up with this person finally and I immediately have eating issues. I immediately am gaining weight.

Aaron Huey: 8:45

I immediately and it was a year and a half in recovery when I finally said oh crap, it's me. It wasn't weed, it was me, it was Aaron. And I started introducing myself at the meeting and everybody says my name is Aaron and I'm an addict. And I started saying I'm an addict and my problem is Aaron. And that is where I began to take the ownership of addiction away from cannabis and away from vodka, and away from LSD and away from women or such bitches, blah, blah, blah. It was me, I was the golden thread, I was the common factor. And so when we say to parents look, it may not be cannabis that your kid goes home and uses again, it could be lying, stealing, sneaking, cheating and breaking the law, because that's the habit. It could be something new, because they're not ready to put their weight on the injured limb yet. And that's why we use crutches right, Because I've injured a limb and I need to get around. And this is just an emotion crutch. This is emotional ibuprofen. That's what cannabis is. It's emotional.

Rev Rachel Harrison: 9:54

Right and ultimately they're covering their pain. On the inside I think there's so much pressure to fix the limb but really ultimately underneath is their. Alex had intense separation, anxiety and self-worth issues and all the things that he's still working on today. But part of my experience was going through Alenan Six years ago when I finally got sober myself and I went to Alenan because of Alex and Rich.

Rev Rachel Harrison: 10:31

I went to Alenan because my son was still an addict and my husband was. They were fighting. They were still just fighting so hard and so I walked through the doors and sat down and actually listened for the first time, Kind of like when I finally actually sat down and admitted I was powerless over alcohol myself, to sit down and really admit that I was powerless over their addiction, over their interactions, and I started to see things in a totally different way that was more holistic, more spiritual, more loving. That reminded me so much of your program and the pieces that you did in your program that were around the whole being and helping Alex discover his whole self. Can you speak to that?

Aaron Huey: 11:24

Yeah, and we love to call in recovery this work we do with parents we call them the Alenan moments, because this is where this work begins is when the parents realize that they've got to step through the door.

Aaron Huey: 11:39

They're not there to spectate on recovery, they're there to participate on recovery. And when you step into the rooms, when you step as a parent into the parent weekends of a program, that's actually going to confront the family voice, not just the child who's using, but the parents who are using and the parents who are experimenting, and the parents who are living around on crutches Right, oh, I've had such a busy day Two bottles of wine, and now Netflix is saying to dad, are you still watching? Like, do you want us to keep going? Right, that's a crutch. So as long as the kid is watching this at home, we know what they're going to do in the treatment program. But these Alenan rooms and these treatment rooms, that's just where the parents in the front row and I remember this so spectacular Parents looking at me and saying, well, we've been listening to the other parents here, your parent training course here, and they're just our kid called CPS.

Aaron Huey: 12:38

And they made a false report about us and we just we don't know what to do, like we don't need to, and I don't. No one else has had to deal with that. And I'm listening there in the front row and I said how many of you have had your kid called CPS on? And those parents sheepishly put up their hands and I said, turn around. And there were eight other parents in the room who had their hands up and I said how many of you have had your kids steal your car? 100% of the rooms, hands went up and so I just went into a litany of how many of you because this death by lonely right, this, this terminally unique.

Aaron Huey: 13:14

That's the problem. That's where the whole healing, the whole list of healing, comes in is that this is not just a emotional recovery. You're about to go through your body's shot, your mind is bent, if not broken, your heart is cracked, your finances are struggling. Like this is full body recovery and that also starts with this idea that somehow nobody else in the history of ever and never has gone through what you're going through. And it's a lie, it's crap, and those Alenon rooms prove it, and the recovery rooms prove it. And you starting your own podcast or starting your own support group or starting your own coaching practice. A thousand clients in?

Aaron Huey: 13:57

Yeah, you know, rachel, I have read over 300 teenage suicide notes. I know what they're going to say. I have read them with the kid right in front of me. I have been handed to them by the parents while the kid sitting on the couch in the intake office, and I can look at the kid. And here's the thing that parents get by going through the the rooms, by walking through the doors.

Aaron Huey: 14:20

This is, if I, if I can tell anybody listening, the power of recovery as a family allows you to be able to sit in the darkness. That's what we call it. The worst thing that you could ever imagine is happening. Can you sit with it? Can you be with that? Because we want to hide, we want to escape, we want to get out of here. It sucks, it's uncomfortable, it's painful. We're not sleeping, we're not eating, we're not drinking water, we are not moving our bodies and we are not breathing on purpose.

Aaron Huey: 14:48

Can you sit in that space? Because when your kid hands you or you find the fill in the blank, the bag of pills, the scale, the suicide note, your kid missing from their bed at three in the morning. Can you sit in that before you do anything? Can you sit in that moment, in that darkness and go? This is affecting my whole body. Now, how am I going to parent If you can get? One millisecond gap between what you are feeling and what you do makes the difference, and that's what walking through the doors gets you, that's what being in a support group gets you. Is one moment where you don't react, you stop and you sit in that moment and go. Okay, what am I going to do?

Rev Rachel Harrison: 15:40

So how do you sit in that moment? And part of sole recovery, the community of sole recovery, we tend to be the fixers, we tend to be the I'm going to take care of it. I can make this change. If I can just do this one thing, if I can just say this one thing, then I can fix it. Just like I thought Alex is going to treatment was going to fix it.

Rev Rachel Harrison: 16:02

Well, our story was it was really hard after and it didn't go well. He ended up dropping out of high school. He ended up having legal issues. He ended up having to get kicked. We had to kick him out of his house. He was homeless. He went through this whole spectrum of things and there was this part of me that kept wanting the next thing to be what fixed him. And the more that I let him have his experience, the more that I loved him, the more that I saw him as whole, the more I quit trying to make it better for him, the more he stepped in. But how do you do that when you think that you were kid? I have people who I work with. I have people who listen, whose kids are. They don't know where they are right now. They're terrified, they're going to die. So how do you stand in that darkness and allow that to be and to take care of yourself? What is your expertise in that?

Aaron Huey: 17:02

Yeah, that's the big toolbox right there, right? What you're just saying is that because all you get is a moment, and all you get to buy and purchase is a moment and that's it. And here's the good news is that if you miss the moment, you got another one right now. But see if you're future tripping, if you're mapping tomorrow from the fear, fatigue and fury you're going through today, tomorrow already sucks and it hasn't even shown up. But by God, don't even talk to me about yesterday, because yesterday was a nightmare. So. But here's the moment right now. Did you take it and all those tools in the parenting toolbox for your kid? Who has attempted suicide, is in the hospital because the OD is missing? Who's high right now playing video games? Just told you to go f yourself when you said dinner's ready, right? That's all you get is a moment. Now, in the moment the toolbox opens, otherwise it just stays shut and you're just throwing toolboxes around.

Aaron Huey: 18:02

We always said you had to train the carpenter before you handed them any tools, right? And then the parents weekend. I was always saying you gave me a saws all. I would do more damage than good with it. But I know people who can build houses with it, not me. Somebody has to teach me how to use a saws. All truth of the matter is that you can use the front load process. You can use the delay process. You can use the lizard to wizard process. You can use I can name off and rattle off all these wonderful tools that, by you, that once you have the moment you can do that can change tomorrow, that can make tomorrow palatable.

Aaron Huey: 18:40

Better survival, the process for getting in the moment. I give people five things or you're going to miss the moment. But here's the good news. Here's another one coming your way right now. Take it. Here's why we miss the moments. We're not sleeping, we're not eating, we're not drinking enough water, we're not moving our bodies and we're not breathing on purpose. Let's talk about sleep. If you're not sleeping, you're not making good decisions. Period, because your brain chemistry is off. So you got, you got to get your sleep. It means you wake up at the same time You're. What time you wake up matters, not what time you go to bed. What time you wake up matters to focus on your wake up time, not your go to sleep time. Your body will adjust. Number two take a drink of water right now. Let me do it Just there. You just got a moment where you did self care.

Aaron Huey: 19:29

Good job and you know you should drink more water. You know it, we've all been told it, you know. I don't know what it is now, it's like 13 gallons a day or some crap, I don't know. But really, what matters is that you just take the moment and you take a drink of water. Because now you've taken the moment, how about you breathe on purpose, just one breath. Just start right there, because you're not going to do well accidentally, you're not going to be a good parent, you're not going to parent your kid into recovery accidentally. This is on purpose or it's off purpose. Move your body. Sitting is the new smell. Move your body. Get up, take the dogs for a walk, then decide what you're going to do. Okay, that's it. Sleep, oh. And then the final one is eat.

Aaron Huey: 20:13

And you've got two choices with eating. You either need to eat organic food or you need to cook. You need to make your meal at home, because those are the magic needs. Everything else you're putting fuel in your body. I get it, crap in, crap out. Your level of fuel is going to be based on the level of food you could buy, and I get it. We can't all afford organic food. So cook your food. Take the time, make the time, make the meal and then take in the meal, because that has made it a magic meal. That's how you buy your moments. You don't buy a moment in a seminar or at a treatment center. You buy a moment when you go. I need to get into a sport group.

Rev Rachel Harrison: 20:48

Yeah, and I was going to say what you're describing is the take care of yourself first.

Aaron Huey: 20:53

Yes.

Rev Rachel Harrison: 20:54

That when we care for ourselves, part of a main thing a Soul Recovery is turn the attention to yourself that the more that we are connected to our own experience, our own moment, the more that we can create the space that holds the possibility of spirit coming in. This is a spiritual program. We're coming in and trust that there is something that can restore us to sanity that can be in the space and sometimes that's not them, Sometimes that's just me. Can I have space? Can I take care of myself? Can I eat, Can I drink water? Can I move? And in that, letting go of control. The first step in 12 step is we're powerless over somebody else's addiction and Alan on that space, that being in the moment, it's releasing the fear. Releasing the fear and just being present with yourself and allowing yourself to be really sad and mad.

Aaron Huey: 22:00

Sitting in the darkness. It's like this is how I feel. Okay, feel it Because if you stuff it, it's coming back. If you mask it, if you ibuprofen up, it's coming back, because it wasn't a cure, it's coming back.

Aaron Huey: 22:13

I love what you said about the trust piece, because that's a tough one, especially when your kid is trying to kill themselves. How do you trust them when your kid has stolen your money and downloading porn and, god knows right, cutting themselves, and how do you trust your kid not to cut again? It's very interesting because I got a package from Amazon today and, being in Mexico, I can't read the emails I'm getting from Amazon or the texts I'm getting. But I don't have to. Why? Well, because I trust Amazon. And it's interesting because someone brought this up to me. It's like you put an order online, do you call up and say did you get my order? Yeah, we got it, okay. And then did you fill my order? Call it back? Yeah, we filled it Okay. Did you put it on the truck? Yeah, we put it on the truck, okay. And you keep calling them back to make sure is it on its way? Yeah, it's on its way. And then do they call you and say did you get it? We don't do that. Why? Because we trust Amazon, and I see people trust Amazon more than they trust God. Right, because we don't check in. And we trust Amazon more than we trust our own kids.

Aaron Huey: 23:20

And what would it be like to vacate the space you want them to employ? What would it be like to give the problem back and actually say to your kid and my parents did this with me very well, my dad says I still am very ADHD and I struggled with addiction and they just kept giving me my problems back. They were unwilling Trust me. My mom wanted to. My mom was a rescuer. My mom was a freter. She was always fretful about my risky decision-making, progress and process, but she trusted me to figure it out and she said as much you'll figure this out. And that was a gift I gave my kids. It's the space for them to screw it up. And when they did, oh, you bet I was right there. Well, was I right there with a solution? Yeah, did I always offer it? I asked if they wanted it and sometimes they said yes. More often than not they said yes. 99% of the time they said yes and then they argued with my offer and solution, and that's okay, because they'll figure it out, and they have they do. How do you trust that? Well, do you trust Amazon? Do you like Amazon more than you like your kids? Right now you might, because Amazon gives you what you want.

Aaron Huey: 24:28

But see, therein lies the lesson behind trust. If we are waiting for our children to change their behavior so that we can be happy, we're screwed, because that's just us and this is very Buddhist putting the expectation on others to make our life what we desire. If we are not the authors of our own tomorrow, then who is? Does your child have the strongest nervous system in the room? Well, if you're furious, fatigued or afraid, then probably if they're a screaming teenager. You just punched a hole in the wall because you're trying to take their phone from them and now you have a hole you've got to fix.

Aaron Huey: 25:06

Then yeah, I didn't say healthiest nervous system, I said strongest nervous system. That's how a 14-year-old takes over the house. That's how a two-year-old takes over a grocery store. Your nervous system is shot. And for you to get it back, here's what you do you sleep, you drink water, you eat healthy food, you move your body and you breathe on for purpose. That's how you get your nervous system back.

Aaron Huey: 25:30

It's not a medicine and it's not a tool in a toolbox. It's the things we do accidentally that we could do on purpose, and they're all free. And that's the start. That's the most basic, fundamental foundation. And that's what parents get when they walk into the rooms of Al-Anon and that's what parents get when they put their kid into treatment is they go and they sleep for the first time in two years and then they go. All right, I need to look at some of the decisions. And then they visit the cul-de-sac of past parenting mistakes and there's nothing down there for you other than what not to do moving forward. So visit it, but don't linger there. That's not your path. Your path, that's a cul-de-sac, that's not a street moving forward.

Rev Rachel Harrison: 26:20

If you're ready for sole recovery. As a spiritual coach, I can support your healing to help make real changes that will bring you a life of peace, happiness, connection and abundance. You can also work in smaller groups by taking a deep dive in a Zoom workshop or with me in person at a retreat or an event. Join others on the sole recovery path, once a month for the free Zoom support group or daily on the private Facebook page. Visit the website recoveryoursoulnet to book coaching sessions with me or find all the information you need about sole recovery dates that are coming up and how to register for those groups and workshops. To support the podcast and the community, check the links in the show notes to make a small monthly donation or a one-time donation of your choice. That will make a huge impact to support this community and the sole recovery mission. Together we can do the work that will recover your soul.

Rev Rachel Harrison: 27:17

I love that because I actually had somebody yesterday who said the guilt that they feel for giving their kids some of these problems that they have. They feel that it is their job to fix it for them because they gave them this situation, this problem, this issue. I love the concept of don't look back because we all did things. Ultimately, I raised Alex in an alcoholic home. Rich and I were alcoholics. I have some responsibility around what he grew up with. Then I come back to I have to trust that we all go through stuff, that we all have experience in our lives. My new and most important piece is how do I take care of myself and how do I, like you said, how do I hand them their own issues with trust that they can handle it? Can you talk more about how to do that process of handing them the stuff back without shoving it on them and saying, screw you this is yours Right?

Aaron Huey: 28:33

Yes, because it's the big one. It's the one that actually infokes recovery. This is important. I want to talk about regret.

Aaron Huey: 28:45

I was a drug addict for the first three years of my daughter's life. I hate myself for it. I'm 25 years old. She's 28 years old, she's brilliant, she's beautiful, she's married, she's got a career, it's all happening no-transcript. And I leverage that regret.

Aaron Huey: 29:05

I don't believe. No regrets, no regrets. Are you kidding me? I hate the person I was and I have spent my life working with people like me so that they don't have to be like that anymore because they don't want it. I don't. That's the last kind of man I want to be. I'd rather die than go back there, and I know if I do it'll kill me.

Aaron Huey: 29:26

So I'm gonna leverage that regret and hold that form and shape as something that I'm never gonna fit in again. I will change my body and my mind and my heart so that that doesn't fit. Those comfortable sweatpants Don't look good on me anymore. God. I wanna wear them every single day. That's the power of addiction, that's the disease that I carry through my life, and the work I have to do every day is to remember. So I'm not gonna say don't regret, because that's made me a good parent and a powerful parent coach, is my regret.

Aaron Huey: 30:02

I don't like enabling, I don't like the concept of it. It's not that I don't like enabling, it's that I don't like the concept of it. I don't like the leveraging of enabling, because, had I said to you and Alex's dad when you guys came into the facility oh, you guys are just enablers, you guys are just enablers. That sets us off in a contentious relationship because you don't wanna be an enabler, none of us wanna be an enabler. But what I will say is that, rachel, everything you did with Alex got him to the front doors of my facility. That's a great place to be in that moment, right now, let's do something different.

Aaron Huey: 30:42

And until we're all ready to change, we're gonna repeat the same stuff. We're gonna put on the old pair of sweatpants, but first we have to change our pants. We keep trying to change a kid's pants. We have to change our pants first. How does a child know how to change their pants if they don't watch mom and dad change their pants? How does a child know how to walk through that, those sticky, prickly weeds where the hidden path of recovery lays? It's not down the rose-laden, manicured, cemented path that takes us through the garden of recovery. That's BS. What's real is that recovery sucks.

Aaron Huey: 31:17

I have to confront every painful thing that I have been hiding from. Listen, folks, when I was high, I was happy. When I was sober, I was suicidal. Now, tell me I should quit. Tell me I should stop using Go ahead. I'm listening. Convince me, because the moment I was sober, I was ready to kill myself.

Aaron Huey: 31:39

As a 27-year-old living in the back of my truck seeing my daughter after school, I was waiting for her mom to get off work at the East Boulder Rec Center fishing so I could eat. That felt awesome. You know, when I didn't want to kill myself is when I was high. So that's what you're up against. Did this medicine I've been taking? It worked and I didn't have to feel as much pain as I was living being a sexually assaulted, fatherless, bullied drug addict Tell me I should quit.

Aaron Huey: 32:14

Now what happened was is that when I was finally left put on my own pants, I changed my pants because I saw the pants I was wearing and I was on my knees for the first time, and I had been made a minister in 1996. And it was in 1998 that I hit my knees and said I'm not gonna stop. You have to make me quit. You have to stop me. I've traded everything my daughter, my marriage, my home. I'm living in my brother's room in my parents' house at 28 years old now. I'm not gonna quit. I'm high right now. To God, and you know me, you made me. I give up, I surrender. This stuff was more stronger than me, but it's not more stronger than you and you gotta make me quit. See, everybody was trying to tell me how strong God was, but it wasn't until I was able to see how weak I was. That's my path, that's my work. That's between me and my higher power, not you and yours.

Aaron Huey: 33:16

The inspiration to quit came from losing everything. If the consequence don't hurt, the consequence don't matter. Well, erin, wasn't the consequence of loing your marriage and your daughter and your wife enough? Nope, it wasn't. Because when I was high, I was happy, so it wasn't enough. You see, it's not until we understand what's going on in our brains as to why we use and choose, using over our families and our kids and our parents and the life. But once I felt that impact of rock bottom, I remember my wife sitting in my parents' house holding our daughter saying don't you love us? And me screaming at the top of my lungs I'm not gonna get sober for you, it has to be for me. And she said you are the most selfish person I have ever met in my life and I'm like yep. And then I saw how selfish I became.

Aaron Huey: 34:23

Where it's like hey, do you guys want to go out tonight, honey? And I'm like no, I'm gonna go to a meeting you care more about. Yeah, I do, I'm taking care of myself first, and I'm gonna go tend to those adult relationships in my rooms second, and then I'm gonna come and be with you third, Cause that's the only way I'm gonna actually be here with you. That's me putting on my pants and my daughter and my son looking at me and going oh, that's how you change your pants. You do what he did. If you want what I have, you do what I do. And you don't do it because I told you to do it.

Aaron Huey: 35:05

And I challenge everybody listening tell me one thing you changed in your life because of a really good lecture your parents gave you One thing go ahead, I'm waiting, Right, yeah, but now tell me you changed and tell me what you changed because of what your parents did or did not do. Let's see. That's how we learned. So it was when my parents, my ex-wife, my child handed me my own life back and said you deal with it, that I had to deal with it, and that was rock bottom, isn't it Going? Oh, this sucks. I don't want this anymore. I'm done.

Rev Rachel Harrison: 35:40

And it's your, I mean for me as well.

Rev Rachel Harrison: 35:43

It is our own piece that has to do the switch, that says here I am, I'm sober and I want to kill myself, but I can see that I want to get better, that there is something that I'm still going to choose to get better.

Rev Rachel Harrison: 36:03

It's this weird like being an addict. I think helps me in such a huge way with people who have family members who are addicts, because, just like you, I get addiction. I get addiction in a way that it's hard to understand if you haven't been there, and I had that moment of grace that said I deserved to live, I deserve to have a better life, and then I aggressively put all my energy into it and I've had this profound transformation in my life and I trust. I trust that my husband and my kids can have the same awakening if they so choose, and my energy of taking care of myself and giving them their lives back has given me that moment that you're talking about. I am in the moment, and so sometimes they're doing great and sometimes they're not, but I've quit thinking. It's my job to fix them and continue to choose myself, choose myself.

Aaron Huey: 37:10

You know you and I were talking earlier, and when you talk about walking through the doors and just listening not talking being quiet and listening. The day after I hit my knees I was on my way to work. I had just gotten high and my truck died. I pulled over to the side of the road and I was walking to the gas station to call my dad to come give me a ride. Again, that's the proverbial life that I was going through my dad giving me a ride. He's not even my biological father. This man shows up and picks me up again and again, and again. And I see this little church up on the left and I know it. I know that grace is coming and I'm terrified Because what I asked for I'm getting. I'm gonna stop and I don't wanna deal with it.

Aaron Huey: 37:54

I'm getting close to the church. I hear this noise and I'm just like I am shaking. I cannot look at this. This tall, small little white country church on this dirt road outside of Longmont, colorado, and I'm standing across from the church and it's like this noise, and I finally summon the courage and turn and look, and this, the only way I can describe it, is this Christ consciousness is standing in front of me, this visceral apparition and this overwhelming voice not my voice a voice that says you can put your drugs down now and never look back. And I take my weed out of my pocket and I drop it on the ground and, I kid you not, a win blows it up behind me and I take my pipe out and I throw it in a ditch and the noise is gone and all I feel is love, all I feel is forgiveness Unconditional. The dealer I was the man. I was the man. I wasn't. I was. It was over. I there was hope and I was as sober as the day I was born.

Aaron Huey: 39:03

Wow and I start to cry and I walk Get my daddy comes, fit me up. We limp my truck home. I call the triangle club, the 12th set group. Somebody answers on the first ring now. I had called them a month ago. Nobody answered and I took that as a sign from God that I was overreacting and I could keep using. That's how we think, right mm-hmm.

Aaron Huey: 39:23

I call the triangle club. Somebody answers and they go travel club and I say when's your next meeting? I think I'm an addict. And he goes where are you? I'll come get you.

Aaron Huey: 39:36

Hmm and I say don't do this. He goes, it's okay. I say don't fucking say it and he goes, it's okay, I love you and I I said I can't do this right now. He goes, we haven't meeting every hour. If you need a ride will come get you and he hangs up and I go to bed. It's noon and I and I'm like it's love isn't it?

Aaron Huey: 39:59

That's all I keep saying in my mind. It's love, is this divine love and this love of a stranger? So I get up the next day and I find the schedule. I get up the next day, my parents think I'm going to a meeting at work and I go sit down on the couch and Rachel, my parents, are watching, clean and sober, with Michael Keaton on the TV, and I'm just walking like I cannot believe this is 24 hours, has been nothing but God and I. I'm watching, clean and sober, with my parents, knowing I've lied to them yet again, and I'm gonna go to a, not a work meeting, but an AA meeting. And I grabbed her remote and I turn it off and it's like it's now or never and my my mom goes in this funny little boy. She goes excuse me, because I just turn off their movie and I go.

Aaron Huey: 40:47

I look at my mom and I know I'm gonna kill her with this and I say I'm not going to a work meeting, I'm going to a 12-step meeting because I'm an addict. My mom just goes pale, she starts to cry. My, my dad, this man who I've lied to and stolen from and I've been such a shitty brother to his By-law children, puts his hand on the back of my deck and he says whatever you need, I'll do because I love you. And I was just like are you kidding me? That's all. That's all this ever was, was I? I am not lovable and loving. And here I'm Surrounded by at the moment, I humble myself and say I can't do this. All I got from that was love.

Aaron Huey: 41:33

So I go to the meeting. This is. I'm such an addict. I go to the meeting and I'm sitting in this room. Right, they're doing the intros and and if it's your first time here, welcome. And today's a speaker meeting, and Rachel, but I naturally assumed that they meant that I was gonna talk, and so I'm preparing myself in this room of strangers to get up and tell them how my problem is, this amazing problem that no one ever has. And they say, okay, our speaker for today is. And I get up to talk, not even realizing that. How would they even know my name to introduce me?

Aaron Huey: 42:13

This is my first time in the room so arrogant and this hand grabs the back of my shirt and yanks me down into my chair and I turn around to swing on. Whoever was, I don't care who it was, you don't touch me, I Do not trust you, I do not know you. That that Addict, that fighter comes right up and I turn around to swing and it's this massive biker dude Long I had a lot of bikers has big old belly Beard all the way down to his navel, gray salt and pepper hair and beard Tattooed all over his face, patch jacket and he looks at me in his arms across, just crossed across his chest, and he goes sit up, down and shut up. Gopher, once in your life and maybe you'll learn something. A whole room is dead quiet. I have 50 people in this room. Wow. I sit, I sit down and the person to give the top gets up there and says I'm sexually assaulted.

Aaron Huey: 43:14

I Started smoking pot when I was 12. I never met my father. That was my story. He told my story Right, and then, of course, afterwards I, you know, find a sponsor if this is your first time, and I turn around to the guy and I go Julie, my sponsor, he goes, I'm gonna be your king sponsor and that was it, the guy handed me. For me, my sobriety wasn't the steps, it was the rooms, it was the people in those rooms that kept me on the steps. It was my sponsor who showed up at four in the morning to Perkins. And when I'm sobbing over my fourth step, he grabs my hands and says I killed my grandmother while I was robbing her house like a guy meth, we're gonna be okay.

Aaron Huey: 44:03

And then that his his story, my story, this self-loathing, this guilt, the shame that we have his parents as addicts, that I have a place now I have a tribe and they got my back. That's why we use that. No matter what you've been through At our treatment facility, we got your back the girls who had been trafficked, the boys who had done the things and the girls who had had the things done to them, and the girls who've done the thing and the boys. And I got your back. No matter what, we got your back.

Aaron Huey: 44:34

There is no judgment here and that is love. I'm so guilty for who I've been as a parent, but I know love and I have enough love to show the whole world every addict, and I can sit in your shadow Because I know how to take just this moment and not use To be uncomfortable and sit in the darkness ago. I don't know where I am, but I'm gonna be with this sadness, this pain, this love, because there's love here and if it's not with them, it's with me. I got you and that's why I'm a parent coach. That's why I opened a treatment facility is because of the love I felt the day I got sober.

Rev Rachel Harrison: 45:19

That's incredible. It's a. You're crying, I'm crying. What a, what a powerful story, and I, I love that, just the, the, the relation that we're all have our own unique experiences and yet there's always some truth that we're, in it, the same and and whether you're an addict, or whether you love an addict, or whether you're just, you know, a human being who notices the complexity of life, this inner twining of all of it, of all of it. And so you had the treatment facility for a long time, and then it closed and then you've been doing the parent coaching.

Rev Rachel Harrison: 45:57

What else? What else are you doing? How do people get more ear and Huey and what you have to offer?

Aaron Huey: 46:03

We close the treatment facility because of the fires up in Estes Park. Our facility had been surrounded by fires. We were safe and fine, untouched, but the zip code is now uninsurable and so that was devastating. So we continue to work with families in crisis. I continue the coaching not only coaching families who are in deep crisis, training coaches how to work with families in deep crisis.

Aaron Huey: 46:26

I have a parent masterclass. I have a podcast that you can find everything on parentingteensthetstrugglecom Everything I've got free videos, free resources, the podcast, the book. I wrote a book on parenting a child who's struggling with video game addiction, rachel. My next book is coming out November 15th, which is about those archetypes. Do you remember the parenting archetypes the warrior, wizard, jester and Bard? Yeah, that, I have published an entire whole personality typing system about why people do the things they do and the four prime personalities.

Aaron Huey: 47:01

And are you a warrior, are you a jester? Are you a Bard, a wizard? What's your kid? What kind of parent are you? So everything is on parentingteensthetstrugglecom, including the masterclass where everything I taught at our facility I put up for parents 56 classes for 99 bucks, and that's in the red, the big risk, yellow, the at risk and green. Things are good. How do we make them go great, stay great? And so all three of those courses are there and part of the package. So, yeah, that's how you follow up with me, the podcast Beyond Risk and Back the Facebook free group Parenting Teens that Struggle. I'm still on the 12th step. Right, you keep sending the message of hope to those who have not.

Rev Rachel Harrison: 47:46

Absolutely, absolutely. And I think the community is so important. That's that piece of I know for me. I couldn't have gotten sober without the rooms of AA and I couldn't have found this serenity that I have in loving people who have addiction to lives without Alenon. And yet there's a desire for a deeper something and there's more communities and just the more that we can connect with each other and gather not only gather the information, but truly live the principles and be in our own experience of healing. The more we are offering healing to the world, we're handing it to them with love and not handing it to them with that screw you attitude where we're modeling how to put the right pants on the beautiful outfit.

Aaron Huey: 48:40

Yeah, yeah, every parent who's got a kid who's at risk or deep risk, or you're just worried about it. You're worried about how much pot they're smoking. They've cut a couple of times. Get your butt to an Alenon ring. Don't enough with the excuses. No BS go. You don't know what it is to have been through the door and then you know and you'll understand. Yeah, so just do it and work with the coach, take a class, everything. Get your butt to an Alenon.

Rev Rachel Harrison: 49:07

Perfect. Thank you so much, Erin. I am so excited that we've reconnected. I know for sure we're going to be doing more work together and sharing each other's communities and sharing the message, because this is big work, this is important work.

Aaron Huey: 49:23

And thank you for the opportunity to talk to your audience. I'm so appreciative.

Rev Rachel Harrison: 49:27

Thank you Until next time, namaste. Thank you for listening to this episode of the Recovery Soul podcast and being part of this amazing and growing community. If you loved this episode and you want even more, there is a bonus episode with even more content every Friday. This is by subscription. You can access that by being a Patreon member and there's three tiers of giving of your choice or an Apple podcast subscriber. Once you have subscribed, you have access to a whole back catalog of episodes as well.

Rev Rachel Harrison: 50:02

If you would go to the website recoveryoursoulnet and I would love for you to subscribe to email updates so that you can keep posted with everything that's going on different events, what dates are coming up, any reminders? There's only a couple emails each month. I hope you follow Recovery Soul on social media. You can find us on YouTube, instagram, facebook, the private Facebook community page, tiktok and, if you want guided meditations, look for Reverend Rachel Harrison on Insight Timer. I really encourage you to take advantage of the one-on-one coaching. This is a unique, intuitive connection between the two of us.

Rev Rachel Harrison: 50:42

There are nine steps to Soul Recovery and I do use those nine steps to loosely guide us through whatever you're coaching that you need, but really it's about creating a way for you to feel comfortable around your healing of your past. Looking at the situations in your life what are the patterns, what are the beliefs that are holding you back? Breaking free from those patterns, breaking free from those beliefs, letting go of control, letting go of the people around you and taking your power back, discovering who you are and who you want to be in the world and how I can support you to do this. And also you're sharing this podcast with your friends, putting five stars, leaving reviews. Really sharing this with others is growing the community. Thank you for being part of this community. Thank you for supporting Recover your Soul and I know that together we can do the work that will recover your soul.