From Codependency to Spiritual Growth: A Couple's Journey Through Addiction

Over 30 years, my husband Rich and I have weathered the storm of addiction, codependency, and the impact it has on a relationship.  In this episode we open up about our personal journey and how it's shaped our family, emphasizing the power of individual healing, effective communication, and accepting each other's unique paths.  Alcohol addiction is a beast that leaves emotional scars and effects everyone involved.  In our chat, we explore this reality, reflect on how it's influenced our relationship, and discuss the importance of setting clear boundaries. Our focus is on personal growth and aligning our partnership values - the key to Soul Recovery and continued learning and healing.
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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

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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

In today's episode I'm sitting down with my husband, Rich. If you've listened to any of this podcast, you know he's a big part of my story and my recovery of co-dependence and my sole recovery journey. I wanted to bring him on to talk more about his addiction recovery story and how we're dealing with that in our marriage, how we're learning how to communicate with each other in new and healthier ways and allowing him to be on his own journey and accepting him exactly as it is, exactly how he is and how that's reflecting in our relationship. Enjoy the episode. Welcome to the Recover your Soul podcast a spiritual path to a happy and healthy life.

Rev Rachel Harrison: 1:29

My name is Reverend Rachel Harrison. I started Recover 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 interchange and healing. Positive results in our lives will follow. Welcome to Recover your Soul. I'm Reverend Rachel and I'm so grateful that you're here with me today. I promised that I would bring Rich, my husband, onto the podcast so that we could just connect with each other and share what's been happening in our lives. And so here he is, Hi Rich, Good morning.

Rich Harrison: 2:22

Good morning Good morning with my plugged sinuses.

Rev Rachel Harrison: 2:26

I know we have a cold, so apologize for our our sinuses being not in the right place. We're not in the right way, but better to have a cold right this second before we go on our big trip in February. Yeah, so the universe is always working for us. I wanted to bring Rich on because this podcast really revolves around my experiences and I'm so thankful that my family has given me full permission to share openly about my relationships with my husband and my children. And you know, rich and I have come a long way. We are going to be celebrating our 30th wedding anniversary next year and we've been together for 32 years and it's been an interesting journey.

Rich Harrison: 3:11

Yes, it has been a hell of a journey.

Rev Rachel Harrison: 3:14

A hell of a journey, but I often say that we're in a better place than we have been since, probably when we first got married.

Rich Harrison: 3:24

Yeah, very different and all the good stuff is in between. You know, going from, we came together because we liked to party together and we thought each other was, we were attractive and we liked to party. That was it and okay, and I'm sure that's how a lot of people end up getting together. The question is, what happens after that?

Rev Rachel Harrison: 3:50

Right, that's a really good point.

Rich Harrison: 3:53

I realized there's something I can share right off the bat, which is right now.

Rich Harrison: 3:58

I had a harrowing we might want to talk about that actually a harrowing event that broke my phone and I've been logged out of Instagram and Facebook for about a week and it's been awesome. I'm good with that. However, I'm going to talk about Instagram, where one of the things that comes up says about relationships. I get hit with the relationship algorithm and it says before you commit to a partner or to a marriage, ask each other these questions. You know, what are your values? How do you deal with money? How do you deal with stress? How do you deal with anger and arguments? We never did that.

Rev Rachel Harrison: 4:44

We never did that.

Rich Harrison: 4:45

No, we did not know. So when it came about, it was uh had to learn every little bit along the way the hard way. And and the recovery is a massive part of that, and that's how you got to where you're at right now.

Rev Rachel Harrison: 5:01

Yeah, and then I talk about it all the time. So thank you for giving me the ability to talk about that. I wanted to bring Rich on because he's such a big part of my story and we really are in a place where we have matured so much and we just had the kids with us for six days and so we'll do another episode talking about the kids and I came downstairs last night and got all giddy and happy in this concept that it was just the two of us living in this house and how simple our lives are, with just us working on our own stuff, which is a lot of stuff. It's not like there's nothing to work on. We are constantly continuing to work on our spiritual journey together and I recognize for everybody that's out there, that the more you have on the outside, the more family members, the more job, the more life that you have it can be harder and harder to turn within and come into your inner space where you're doing your own healing and just to recognize that that's true and that for Rich and I, I think that we're on a spiritual journey, but it looks different, and I've said this before, that his sobriety looks different than my sobriety.

Rev Rachel Harrison: 6:23

And last October when we went to Mexico and we had the whole awareness that you were still drinking a little bit and you drank in Mexico and for anybody who's just starting to listen, there's some episodes last October around him disclosing in Mexico that he was going to continue to drink and it was kind of shocking really, and us working that through, working that through. But each person's journey is their own journey and I think one of the things that I am grateful for in soul recovery is that I have learned how to accept Rich in a way that allows him to be on his own path and I put way more attention on my own healing and let him have his own experience. How has that felt for you and my working on myself? What does that feel like for you?

Rich Harrison: 7:15

Well it's, it's been amazing for me and I think for both of us, and what it speaks to me is it's, it's the codependent piece, that your sobriety is not literally affected, reacted by my sobriety or my actions and vice versa. That's been a massive shift in how you and I relate and it's been so I don't just want to say, oh, it's so much better, it's, it's so much more deeply useful for both parties. Because, like you say, going back to Mexico, that hits you hard and it hit me hard, just the, the phenomenon that I just couldn't keep myself from wanting to drink in Mexico. But there's, there's a backstory to that.

Rich Harrison: 8:14

All the years I spent, which were the best years of my life, like a Brian Adams song, those are the best years of my life, other than the ones with you, my, my darling, oh, thank you. But the early ones was with my soulmate, my best friend, traveling through Baja, surfing, and we drank the whole damn. Just, we drank the whole time. So our paths being different and be in that being okay, and us working together and asking each other well, how's that going for you and how's that going for you, instead of it all being tied together and completely codependent, is really useful. It works. It's been working for us.

Rev Rachel Harrison: 9:01

We used to fight a lot more. We used to fight around Alex, particularly in the kids and our different parenting styles. But I've I've watched our communication change over the last six years since I've been doing soul recovery, and it's not always easy, it's not always good, you know. I recently I got that part of me that where I'm starting to get resentful, I'm starting to have all these feelings and you always say, like why can't you just do it a little bits at a time? It's like it's a volcano that comes erupting out and all of a sudden I just spew out this, this intensity and upset, and but I feel like we I kind of fall into the room that I need to talk about but we're doing a better job of picking ourselves up and standing in our full selves and speaking from our heart in ways that are much healthier and much more connecting. How's that experience been for you in terms of us working on these things together?

Rich Harrison: 10:16

Well, that's a fact, and you just reminded me of that event where it felt like we kind of relapsed into the old emotional, hard ways of dealing with our pain and our struggles. And, yes, you, you do such a better job of allowing yourself, allowing your little girl to come in sometimes and scare you, and then grabbing her and saying it's okay, you know. And then I simultaneously because we it what maybe one party can't fully experience the progress on their own, because you're still gonna feel like you're doing it all by yourself. And you felt that way for a while. You felt like, especially in the sobriety when I fell off, you've had times where I think you felt like, hey, I'm doing this and I need you to do this too.

Rich Harrison: 11:21

And what's different now is is you're saying you're saying that it's okay, that we're both really working our sobriety, but it looks different and I think, through that acceptance, through that acceptance both ways, that strengthens our ability to both have a role. When one of us is struggling or upset, we do such a better job of like pausing and accepting that our woundedness or our little boy or girls out there whining and freaking out, and we've worked this muscle and it's it's hard to describe. But if you, man, if you can just be so present, it comes to you and it works and you and I have really really been blessed with with progress, yeah, in the way we communicate.

Rev Rachel Harrison: 12:26

I think that this journey is so interesting because you've continued to sort of slip and have your own experience around drinking that I think in the past would have been a bigger deal for me, right and because I see you actively working on your spiritual, emotional, psychological growth in your own way and believe me it's.

Rich Harrison: 12:55

It's hasn't been easy right lately. I've had a few years.

Rev Rachel Harrison: 12:59

It's it's really sitting in my own little wilderness and not jumping back to the old patterns, but watching you move forward in yourself and grow in yourself. That's the part that's the most important to me. And would I prefer that you don't drink? Yeah, I totally prefer that you don't drink, but I don't have a big hook in that being the thing. For me. What the thing is is that we were brought together on purpose. Relationships are one of the greatest spiritual tools that we can have in our lives if we can switch the focus from being like you are supposed to complete me, you are supposed to do for me and move into.

Rich Harrison: 13:50

I get to have this experience with this other human being who's having their experience and you just compliment my life and you just bring love and blessings and support on something that needs to be intact my own self and mirroring.

Rev Rachel Harrison: 14:07

I think one of the things that I think that we're better at, because we feel safe in our relationship is being able to mirror for each other where in the past it was blame yeah, which feels very different if someone judge judgment right right, yeah and and I think, unfortunately, as human beings, we're trying to make ourselves feel better when we're judging the other person.

Rich Harrison: 14:30

This is pretty basic stuff that if you would just do this I'll, I'll feel better, mm-hmm. And you just have to realize on a deep level that that's not how it works right if you're ready for soul recovery.

Rev Rachel Harrison: 14:45

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 soul recovery path once a month for the free zoom support group or daily on the private Facebook page. Visit the website recover your soul net to book coaching sessions with me or find all the information you need about soul 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 soul recovery mission. Together we can do the work that will recover your soul. But learning how to live outside of your ego, learning how to live in a place where you can really feel the love for yourself from within, is not easy.

Rich Harrison: 15:54

It's vulnerable is he? And it's super vulnerable. You you said at some point this year, and it really hit me hard. You said you're learning to live outside of your ego. See, it makes me.

Rev Rachel Harrison: 16:14

And when I said that what I meant by that. I'll be interested to hear what your reflection of it is, but what I meant when I said that was I'm watching you turn more inward and be more connected to your heart and into your higher self, versus wanting accolade from the outside or wanting to control the kids or have your jobs look a certain way or have the world look a certain way. We both wanted the world to look a certain way for us to feel comfortable.

Rich Harrison: 16:50

And that's, that's ego.

Rev Rachel Harrison: 16:52

That's ego.

Rich Harrison: 16:53

I'm always surprised at what triggers me and gets me emotional, but I get. I do it every time. I'm on with you. I think it's similar to our son Alex watching home movies of himself when he's five years old and he just breaks down in tears. That's how I'm starting to feel about looking back on a lot on 45 years.

Rev Rachel Harrison: 17:20

It shows this part that I'm talking about this, this vulnerable heart side of you that's really opening as I look over across the table and see you feeling your feelings.

Rich Harrison: 17:36

Well, sorry I'm losing it over here, getting all emotional, but this year I've been bewildered by how my life has been so great and means so much to me and I've had so many experiences, like everybody does, but being sober, I'm looking back on 45 years of alcohol induced. Who knows? Non, reality?

Rev Rachel Harrison: 18:05

I don't know.

Rich Harrison: 18:08

That's what it feels like now. It sounds crazy, it just I think it just brings up all the hard stuff. It brings up all of the fear and doubt and regret, all the hard stuff, because my family, well, drank so much that I just wish I could go back and do it differently. I wish that there wasn't so many, many times that the alcohol ruined the situation or the event. It's so awesome to be living with you, just you and me, a small little peaceful home that we've built, where all of a sudden we're. Sometimes I feel like I'm on another planet, I'm in another universe and it's so much better. But it's like we used to talk about it way, way back. You feel everything. You feel everything right to the chest.

Rev Rachel Harrison: 19:19

If you look at this part of your heart that's feeling so much right now and these experiences and we look at it from the soul recovery perspective, which is to move into our hearts and see that this is our soul's learning, that this is our progression of ourselves, this is moving out of our unhealthy patterns, of our unhealthy beliefs and moving into our true selves Does it feel like that part of you that was attached to the addiction demon is breaking loose? Do you feel like you're learning from it? How does it feel like it's helping you on the soul recovery perspective?

Rich Harrison: 20:09

So what I'm learning in my soul recovery is that, even though all those years seem like they're like in a veil, like they're clouded, I still had all those experiences and it did build who I am and my values and everything. I just all that time felt like I had drink. I just felt like I had to drink. So it's no wonder that I'm still trying to grasp it, whatever that is. But luckily, I'm learning.

Rich Harrison: 20:48

Every time I, every time I've taken a sip in the past two or three years, it helped me. It's not like it's this gigantic trap door. It, in my case, has helped me because I've actually big, big help was being honest with you about it. Finally I did. I held it for a long, long time. It didn't feel like that long, but we've talked about that but actually being honest with you and then you being less codependent about it, being more on your own path and able to work with me. I think actually one time I was emotional. I pleaded with you. I was like please, just instead of us arguing about it and having it be this horrible thing that throws us both into the pit, work, please work with me. I had a moment of an alcoholic saying I want, need help from you from my wife Work with me, please.

Rich Harrison: 21:53

I think that was a good moment for us, and we've done that ever since, and you've done that for me ever since, and each time I do have a slip they call it. Yeah, and they're becoming less desirable and less and less and maybe I can put myself on the clock again and start collecting time sober.

Rich Harrison: 22:21

But that's for me, that's not really what matters. What matters is my soul development and my overall recovery and my relationship with you and my boys and you know, in the end, the outside world where I don't need to drink to connect, because that's another part about of it. For me, that's a huge part about it for everybody. I think so easy to sit down and have a drink with somebody. Think that's how you connect.

Rev Rachel Harrison: 22:53

It changes everything. I appreciate that awareness and I think that for us. I don't want to give you an ultimatum, and yet it's important also for me to say, if you were to drink more, or have that become part of your life more, there's an honesty that it wouldn't work for me.

Rich Harrison: 23:14

That's true. It's a line that I don't want to cross. I have to make that choice. That's on me to make that choice because, that's see, what you didn't necessarily have in the past were clear boundaries.

Rich Harrison: 23:27

I think you had an ideal you were we were both pretty idealistic, and this is what goes back to our earlier conversation is, if you're gonna do this, it screws up my world. You know that. That outward reasons for why somebody's unhappy, but what you've done and what we've both done is just over the years got much clearer about our boundaries and I love that. You now have a boundary that I can. I can put my finger on it somehow and decide from my, my responsibility to you and to myself, that I don't want to. I don't. I choose not to cross that line because I want to be with you.

Rev Rachel Harrison: 24:09

And it's the same boundary in terms of if you didn't want to do any personal development, you know, maybe you didn't drink, but you really weren't expanding your heart or learning or growing. There's a place where it just doesn't align and that probably wouldn't work for me either, and what I'm grateful for is that there is this desire for us to grow and do this together, especially because there's less pressure for it to look exactly the same.

Rich Harrison: 24:42

Yeah, and what that makes me think is the alcohol. The bottle is the great swimming pool, the great ocean, where you just jump in when, when you're not working, when you're not working on your spiritual development, you think you're being spiritually connected to the universe, but you're just jumping in where you don't have to do any work. I don't know. I hope that is relatable.

Rev Rachel Harrison: 25:08

Yeah, we have this morning ritual where we sit and drink coffee and and talk and we drink coffee.

Rev Rachel Harrison: 25:17

Yes, we drink coffee right, we drink coffee and talk and we listen to something inspirational or I read something, and I'm grateful that when I'm reading or listening, I'm mostly listening and reading for myself, and in the past I was mostly reading or listening wanting you to get it, and my observation is in my releasing of that control. I listen to you, process for yourself and change how you perceive the world, and you often say like I'm so much better than I used to be and I always want to come back in my defense and say but so are you, but we're both substantially different in how we interact with each other and in the world.

Rich Harrison: 26:12

That's because we're working on ourselves first and we're trusting that the osmosis is happening, or whatever you want to say it, but that is so true that this is going to be relatable. I know it. You, for a long, long time, were trying to pump it into me, put stuff into me, and IE, in the worst of times, changed me more to your liking, more to your vision, and that's what has changed. That's what has shifted, and I think it takes a lot of patience and it just takes on working on the life. You worked on the life you wanted and, lo and behold, I made progress and, without your forcing, it became something that you wanted to spend your life with.

Rev Rachel Harrison: 26:58

I agree. Yeah, what a beautiful place to end. Thank you for sharing your heart and our experiences as a married couple together and as addicts and co-dependents, and our healing and our journey, and we're just going to keep doing it and keep growing, and I am appreciative of you being my life partner.

Rich Harrison: 27:23

Ditto, I'm the luckiest guy in the world.

Rev Rachel Harrison: 27:27

Thanks, rich, I love you.

Rich Harrison: 27:29

Thank you, Rachel.

Rev Rachel Harrison: 27:30

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 If you 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.

Rev Rachel Harrison: 28:13

Different events, what dates are coming up? Any reminders? There's only a couple emails each month. I hope you follow Recovery your 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: 28:44

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 Recovery your Soul, and I know that together we can do the work that will recover your soul.