Loving Someone in Addiction: A Wife's Story of Alcohol, Kratom and Healing Together

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Intro from Stephanie and why Catherine is here

01:06Catherine Kohler I am so excited that you are here with me today I have been looking forward to this for quite some time um it's been such a blessing to kind of see how far you've come on your journey um and just as a person and within your marriage um and so this is interesting because you'll be the first spouse and family recovery here with us on DMAF um so first of all why are you here today I am here because my husband is in recovery has been for about going on a year and a half and the SOS which is the recovery support group for spouses and significant others

01:57has greatly impacted me

Greenville roots, three kids and a career

02:00tell me a little bit of how we got here so I'm originally from Greenville um my kids were the fourth generation to go to their elementary school and their high school and not a lot of us left but I'm one of them um I'm a mom of three I had three kids in less than two years so we were on the crazy it was crazy for a while um I work as a recruiter I've been doing that for 20 to 25 years same firm um my kids are out of the house now went to Clemson um yeah and just after school spent a little time in Greensboro a little time in Charleston but back in my hometown

A good childhood and a runner's life

02:48what was growing up like you know for me I had a really good childhood growing up um my parents were divorced but um my mom she's affectionally known as Gee a lot of people know her as that she was just that loving nurturing you know Christ filled lady and I felt like I had a lot of stability with her I still love my dad um you know he was in Charlotte we weren't quite as tight he did pass away about five years ago but for the most part I had kind of a ideal childhood not a lot of drama um I was a track and cross country runner I ran for Greenville High still run to this day that's always been kind of my my hobby um but really nothing out of the

03:37nothing too out of the ordinary on the on the family recovery side

Meeting at Clemson and running into each other

03:42how old were you when you met your husband so it's a funny story I knew him at Clemson but we didn't date okay um and when I was out of school out of Clemson I literally ran into him at a sales call we were both living in Greensboro North Carolina he was living there because his dad lived in Greensboro and I was living there for work we ran into each other our first date our first official date was at his dad's house for New Year's and it turned out that his dad and my uncle were really good friends at Walford and we didn't know that so we just had a lot of lot of little connections um so yes so we lived in Greensburg for about four years or so and then we ended up moving

04:29moving back to South Carolina moving back to Greenville so we've been married going on third on 30 years this year

What attracted her to him

04:35so what attracted you to him that's a great question he's very even killed he's kind of cool calm and collected the funny thing was I thought maybe he was kind of arrogant and kind of one of those like fraternity guys but on our first date at his dad's house all these ladies kept running up to him and giving him big hugs and they were talking about what a sweet guy he was and I think that's what really kind of won me over was seeing that he was really just a sweet and very sensitive person um really easy going easy to be around easy to get along with so about how old were you when y'all met so we met I was like 18 probably when we met but we didn't start dating till I was right at 23 and we were married young

05:26in today's terms we were married I was married at 24 he was he was 27

Competitive, and a proposal on a hill

05:32so how would you have described you as a person there like you just gave his characteristics of what attracted you but what what were you like then um I was very competitive in fact he loves to tell the story because he wanted to propose to me while we were running and I botched up that proposal cause I told him he was too slow and I wanted to run myself um I didn't know at the time but they had planned this you know post elaborate Celebration post proposal Celebration I ruined it for everybody so the next day he convinced me to run and I took him on the largest hill I could and he got down on one knee and I thought he was passing out and I told him to stop his watch so I didn't really care that he was passing out I was just afraid that he was gonna mess up my time

06:22and then he got on one knee and proposed and you know the rest was history but um I think when we first got married I was a little too intense um very competitive um a little bit emotionally detached just by my wiring um you know that's pretty much how it was um and I know early on that sense of competitiveness competitiveness was a little bit of a blessing and a curse um because as he once said it felt like I always had one foot in front of him

The first year of marriage

07:00so what was that first year of marriage like I mean it was great from what I it was 30 years ago so there's not a whole lot I remember about it um I was in medical sales at the time and um and my husband worked for a um just a family owned met um restaurant equipment company and um you know things were things were fine there was no signs of you know any kind of dysfunction in either of us at that time

A beer after work becomes a habit

07:30when do you think some of those signs came up you know I I look back and I think I think we both developed a habit of after a long day at work we would just naturally just grab a beer both of us would um you know it's just what we did and it was beer for the longest time and just one or two and nothing that big but it did become more of a habit hey we're coming home from work let's grab a beer um I wish I could put my finger on exactly when things started to develop into more than just one or two beers I think um when liquor started replacing beer that's when it got a little it changed to a different story um

08:18for a while for a long time things were very functional um you know we'd come home from work and you know him would have a couple of drinks and be fine and nothing ever transpired

"Why does dad act differently at night"

08:32but when one of my daughters was about 6 she looked at me and she said why does dad act differently at night and I looked at him and I asked why do you act differently at night so the signs were there early on I mean my twins are now 23 so you know it was going on for quite some time but it just for the longest time was functional but just got progressively a little worse differently at night how just his personality would change because he was under the influence not abusive not not slurring um not anything to cause alarm to most people that were around him I do remember waking up and talking to him a lot the next day

09:29and I could still smell alcohol on him which to me was a sign that it was too much to be able to smell that much the next day when your kids were about 6 is like probably not like the first first sign but the first one that you can kind of remember kind of the first time that I really can recognize that or really could recognize that was when the kids were probably sixish or so

The insidious nature of functional alcoholism

09:59so what did a a normal day look like around that time and that's the insidious nature of alcohol was that it looked pretty normal because he was functional for so many years um you know we'd come home from work um you know he'd get a couple of drinks we'd you know play baseball in the front yard with the kids or help with homework and then you know we started getting into sports and you know we'd have a couple of drinks and then you know we'd go to a ball game of some sort or we'd go to the ball game first and then we'd come home and have a couple of drinks but it was hard I never considered him to be an alcoholic because everything was so functional and I think that's again

10:46the seriousness of the disease is that it can creep yeah and I think that's kind of why I asked that because at the beginning you mentioned that like you had three children under the age of 2 so just you know I know you're a busy lady and you've got a lot of things going on and he's got things going on so being present as a parent yeah I think perhaps raising three kids and they're three active kids um I think maybe that distracted some attention I had to the skip of what was going on underneath you said it was like functioning when do you really remember it like becoming an escalated problem

Escalation: high school and COVID

11:28I'd say when the kids got to high school I noticed we were having some episodes and I I was noticing that the drinking was increasing um I think part of the problem was I tend to go to bed early and he would wake up I mean he would wait up for the kids to come home and during that period he would just drink until they get came home um where I was going to bed or asleep and he was waiting up so it started escalating some when the kids were in high school and then around covid we started having what I would call episodes um

12:15there was one Thanksgiving right around the time of Covid I think it was probably 2020 um where it got to the point where he had so much and fell in the shower and the kids the next day wrote him letters um there was another time I think when the girls were seniors in high school where um he was gonna chaperone an event and I ended up having to be the one to chaperone because he was just not in a good space so that 2020 2021 was when things were starting to escalate beyond just the functionality of being an alcoholic well that was gonna be one of my questions too

Were the kids protected?

13:03like were your kids protected from it or were they very aware of what was going on or how did they navigate this um I shielded it from them a little but they were very aware of what was going on

The vicious cycle

13:19and we started to have what we now call the vicious cycle where I did not handle alcoholism very well as a spouse so he would drink and I would start to berate and you know make all these jabs while he was drinking which I now know was not the smartest thing to do but I would make jabs at him which would make him mad which would cause him to drink more because he was just fed up with me so it really was this vicious cycle of me needling him mainly about alcoholism but other things too which were probably now that I look back on it connected to alcoholism and him getting frustrated at me and wanting to numb the situation I do remember one time my kids um

14:09were upstairs and I said too loudly and they had friends over and I said you're an alcoholic um and the kids my girls ran downstairs and said mom you said that in front of our kids we are so embarrassed so there was a lot of shame and embarrassment um so I hid it some but not they were they were astute enough to know what was what was going on

Covering up the incidents

14:35did you ever find yourself covering up for him when they got to college I covered up some of the I'm gonna call them incidents that he had where he would almost go on these benders where he couldn't stop um he likes to fish and most of his really off the chain events happened away from me on these fishing trips um twice I had to go to Atlanta to pick him up off of a plane because he was not in the headspace to make the connection from he fishes in Costa Rica from Costa Rica to Atlanta he couldn't make the connection um and I I shielded some of that from the kids

15:24just because I didn't want to get them exposed to all that by this time they were like college age um so I kind of protected them but I kind of didn't at the same time

Calling him an alcoholic

15:37do you remember the first time you called him an alcoholic probably 10 years ago when things started to escalate behind you know past the couple of drinks did you think it before you said it you know for the longest time I remember I was on the fence is he an alcoholic is he not is he just a heavy drinker is he not and I remember there was one time where he was around some of my son's friends and they were teenagers and he was perpetuating he was kind of encouraging this teenage group to drink and that's that's not my m O and he was doing that because he was inebriated himself and I remember the next day it's so funny I can remember that I actually called someone

16:25I called him from my closet I don't know why I called him from my closet but I said Hubert we need to talk I think my husband's an alcoholic but I I'm not sure I'm not sure if he is or not I wish I was more educated on where he was in that mental state cause maybe we could have got help together earlier and I could have thwarted some things um you know we

The football game and the first "I'm done"

16:53we had he had an event in October of 2022 when we were at a um we were at a football game and we had only had four tickets and I'm not a late night person I just wanted to go home so we took two separate cars and I went home and the kids called me as soon as I got home and they said Dad's drunk and we a policeman has his phone and you need to come get him and so I called him his phone the policeman answered and said we have your husband by the side of the stadium he is completely inebriated you need to come get him and so I drove all the way back from Greenville and and got him um

17:43and the next day he said I'm done I'm not drinking anymore I'm an alcoholic and I'm done and that was great and that really was his first step to recovery was at that point was that the first time he had said that that was the first time he had said it mm hmm and he stood by it and did pretty well um went on another fishing trip had a little fall off on that fishing trip kind of bounced his way back but for the most part was kind of staying sober and and I loved it um but then um and this we haven't even talked about this yet

Feel Free, kava and kratom

18:28he had a friend at work um say hey Himp you work out a lot I'm gonna give you this energy drink you should try it it helps you work out and it was a it was a little bottle called Feel Free and um I thought it was great I thought well this is great you can kind of work out it makes you feel good you can this is great you can take it to football games that way you have something and you're not drinking there wasn't enough research or maybe I didn't see the research out at how deadly that Phil Free is because Phil Free is a mix of kava and kratom and hampering into it thinking this is harm reduction right I can't drink so you know at football games or whatever

19:16I'm gonna just have this little feel free and I started noticing that he was buying quite a number of these feel free bottles and then I didn't know until way after the fact he was addicted to the kratom and he would try to get off on his own and when he would try to get off on his own the pain from withdrawals from kratom kratom cause kratom works like a like an opioid so it was like getting off of heroin and so it was so intolerable for him to get off kratom that he would turn to alcohol as he said to put out the fire so we had a couple of episodes where he's trying to withdraw from kratom can't and went back to alcohol

20:09but there was there were situational at that point it wasn't the day to day drinking but those withdrawals episodes drinking episodes were horrific

The kratom timeline

20:24so how long of a period was that with the kratom so kratom started I'm gonna say he quit alcohol in 2022 Kratom probably started 2023 and he said he went to one of my friends his son's wedding and said he tried kratom for a wedding he thought gosh this is kind of give me a little bit of a kick I'm not just gonna use it to work out and this is something I can socialize with and so 20 20 three is when it started really didn't get addicted to it probably till the end of 2023 I didn't know he was addicted to it I didn't really know much about it

21:12but I can look back and see um he went on another fishing trip ran out of kratom and just I had a terrible alcoholic episode um you know I was supposed to get back on a Thursday didn't make it back till a Sunday his friends had to delay their flights just to get him back normal again um and he got home and got off the alcohol after that trip but then returned to the kratom um

Summer 2024: sick, relapse and a flight from Costa Rica

21:41and summer of 2024 I just started noticing that his personality was different and I couldn't figure out why and he was getting sick some like he was getting sick to his stomach and I at first I thought well maybe he's got he ate something wrong but then he was having a couple of episodes of getting sick to his stomach went on another fishing trip ran out of kratom and then relapsed into the alcohol again that was one of the times I had to go and get him off a plane he was in so much pain I had to get him from the emergency room cause he thought he was dying because he was detoxing off of kratom and still had all this alcohol in them too so it was a nightmare I mean

22:32I didn't know I kept watching that plane you know I downloaded that Delta app and I remember watching that plane okay he's not he's alive we're on US soil now so if the plane has to land at least I can somehow get to him and then I'd watch the plane finally got to Atlanta um but he called me in Atlanta and said the ambulance is coming to get me and you'll have to drive down to the emergency room to come get me I didn't know what kind of state he was in and again he just kept saying I'm in so much pain I'm in so much pain I'm in so much pain and I thought why why are you in so much pain I don't get it again I didn't know anything about detox I didn't know anything about kratom um so I got him at that point he was kind of detoxing off a kratom got him back home I think we drove back in the middle of the night

23:20I think I got home at like three in the morning and um the next day he kind of bounced back well it was because he got back on the kratom yeah um that stuff it it it it it's it's horrible I I I can see why it's out there it's maybe it's better than fentanyl or heroin but it is it is a terrible terrible substance it really is um

Detoxing off kratom at home

23:49and so August of 2024 hemp woke me up in the middle of the night he said I gotta tell you something I am trying to detox off of this kratom I'm addicted and so we spent that weekend probably should have been somewhere like the Phoenix Center I didn't you again I didn't know all about what this was um you know we just kept the Tylenol and the Advil I got him milkshakes I got him you know biscuits he didn't sleep for days um and would just cry out in pain because everything in his body hurt and throwing up and sweats and it was awful I I I just I I wouldn't want anybody to have to go through that it was him or me it was just it was it was horrible to see

Was that his rock bottom?

24:35I wanna go back for just a second on the part where you know the incident at the football game and he was like I want I'm not gonna do this anymore and you said he got some time up underneath his belt he sure did so like was he working a program or what was he wasn't working a program and that was that was the problem was he thought I thought okay this was his rock bottom he doesn't need to work a program this is his rock bottom he's going to never drink again because he has hit rock bottom and this was so detrimental he's never gonna go back to it again I wish I was more in the know because he should have been in some type of program and so should have I what was y'all's marriage like at that point it wasn't good it

25:24it what it well i mean it wasn't terrible but but he calls it the vicious cycle because i would needle about little things and he wasn't in that right headspace all the time and so it just it wasn't good he relapsed on kratom once and and had the alcohol event but the kratom was no more after that alcohol's back but then alcohol started to sneak in so

Bourbon in the freezer and Christmas Eve

25:53December of 2024 um my son had gotten a bottle of Bourbon as a graduation gift and he had moved out but the the Bourbon just stayed in my freezer I didn't think anything about it it just stayed there I thought hemp was kind of over the alcohol and what I Learned was he was having just a little bit at night just so he could sleep and then you have just a little bit more so he could sleep and around that Christmas of 2024 I I got really sick with just like a fever virus something and um I remember I was sleeping upstairs cause I wanted to quarantine myself from the kids because it was Christmas time

26:42and I was really sick and him called me on the phone and I thought oh no I I can tell immediately he's drinking again and so me and my sick self I went out and I went to the CVS or Walgreens or whatever and I bought one of those little breathalyzers and made him blow and of course it showed he had alcohol in him and how'd you respond not good no not good like you sob blah blah blah how can you do this how can you do this to our our family it's Christmas I'm sick why are you messing this up um and I thought he was gonna be better that night after I had busted him so I went back upstairs to sleep because I was sick and then I get up in the middle of the night and every

27:33I kept some alcohol in the house back then and every wine bottle every beer everything that we could potentially he was even the non alcoholic wine bottles that we had were gone it's like his head just went into this Bender space I remember it was Christmas Eve and my sister in law came over it was early in the morning and she said how's my brother I said go see how your brother is and she yanked him out of the house and took him to her husband's family cause at this time he's kind of coming out of it um enough and just stayed with them for the day and um then he didn't drink again for you know quite some time um so I thought okay

28:19we're over this he knows he can't have a sip so I like how you said that like I thought things were gonna get better and then all of a sudden he went into this Bender state and we talk about that a lot like the alcoholic and the addict having that that mindset when you push a certain button was like oh okay that's how you're gonna act watch how I mess me up to show you so that's exactly what happened so

Spring 2025: "one more sip and I'm out"

28:43went on yet another fishing trip that did not get end well back to Atlanta I go this is the spring of 2025 came back and I looked at him and I said if you take one more sip of alcohol I'm out of here I'm done and at this point I don't think he wanted to be married to me so at my best friend's wedding he bottomed up and so he moved out for five months and that's when the true true healing and restoration started happening

Fear, anger and a trauma response

29:23so I wanna pause there for a second too to before we go on to that because I know some of the things that we have talked about and some of the healing and reflection that you have made on yourself now what were some of your characteristics that were going on with that like because we talk about that with especially with the spouses they're addicted to the substance and we become addicted to them yeah so what were some of your behaviors fear was a big one um just because some of those episodes were so bad I developed just almost like a trauma response um and we've talked about this a lot in our in our class um you know I could be in the grocery store and smell cleaner and it smells like alcohol

30:14and I immediately you know kind of tense up or you know early on he would maybe raise his voice a certain way and I would hear him and it would kind of put me on edge so anger and fear were probably the two um that probably stuck out the most

The kids take sides

30:37so what were the relationships like at this point with like him and your kids you and your kids cause obviously you and him aren't in the best place if you're splitting ways the kids all sided with me they didn't want anything to do with their dad in fact it it it really hurt my heart for him because this all happened may of 2025 and Father's Day that year the kids refuse to even call him for Father's Day I asked them to just out of you know just out of respect for your dad he's going through a lot he's got a disease at least call him wouldn't do it hmm

31:25hmm wouldn't do it

Five months apart

31:28so when was it when he moved out may of 2025 so what was that like well it was interesting um because we have 30 year well 29 at that time we had a good history together and I still loved him dearly because if you take alcohol out of the mix he's a super guy and because he was functional so long you know he was he was a good dad he was a good spouse for the most part I mean very loving very nurturing um you know very attentive to the kids and their needs you know had a successful has a successful business um still love the guy um it was kind of nice being by myself but it sometimes it got it it did get lonely because the kids were out

32:17it was just me in that big old house by myself now I'll I'll be real it sometimes I liked it cause I could go crawl in bed when I wanted to scroll on my phone watch whatever I wanted to watch I think my grocery Bill was like 50 bucks a week you know so all that was good but but I really I wasn't ready to bow out yet I wasn't ready to throw 30 years away so

Going to recovery meetings with him

32:42my little nugget of a way to see him was that I told him I would start going to recovery meetings with him okay on Tuesday I don't know if you knew that but that that was part of the catalyst I just wanted to spend some time with him and this was probably about a month after he moved out and I said well I'll go with you he said okay and that was kind of like the one time I would see him during the week for the first couple of months now granted at this point he is diving deep into recovery so he is getting help he did start seeing a a a psychologist a specialized um person in addiction um he's also very very spiritual and he orchestrated a couple of one on one prayer sessions they were very very transformative for him

33:37not just for his addiction but to set his heart on fire for me and the kids again so you know he started taking true steps towards that recovery

The first meeting

33:49do you remember your first meeting a little um it was a little intimidating at first because I wasn't in there I had never gone to a recovery meeting before but then I remember there was a guy in there that I knew um from way back in high school um which was fun and so I just felt like I kind of slid in I felt like that first time I started talking and participating and he had a good meeting so um so yeah it was I I I felt like it was a natural progression and I remember also I went to one meeting and then the next next time I was invited to a work related um business after hours kind of happy hour thing it was all work related and I remember hearing from my sister in law that he was kind of upset that I went to the happy hour

34:41rather than going back with him so I thought okay that's what I'm gonna do so every week we would he'd pick me up and we would go every week together

"We're addicted to them" and the hula hoop

34:51so what are some of the things that like stood out for you because one of the things we talk about in there is cause a lot of times the spouses come in here and they're like we need you to fix them is their drinking that's the problem right and then you know we have a running joke in there that I pop people's bubbles because I can't help you I can't fix them but I can help you fix you right yeah so what was some of those like first realizations like oh this is my recovery right right well that's one of the first things they said was you know they've got the addiction but we're addicted to them and one third one thing that I really did get to understand in that meeting is so much of addiction is out of my control I can't make anybody come out of addiction I can encourage but I can't make anybody come out of addiction they've got to do it for themselves

35:39and it's interesting one of the things that we talk about in our recovery group is we're in that hula hoop and just focus on the things that we can control which are inside that hula hoop and if we can't control it then um we have to let it go and I've ended up applying that for not just you know the recovery process but for life I mean work family whatever else there's so many things that are out of my control that I have to just relinquish are you a woman that likes control yeah I think every woman likes control to a point yeah yeah I always thought I was not and I was just easy going and go with the flow and flexible and then when I started really reflecting

36:28no no it's not it's all control yeah yeah me too I thought I was easy going and but I'm the same way like I I my my kids and my family will tell you I like control yeah and one of my favorite little phrases that I really have to remind myself and that I try to share with others is that

The more we control, the more out of control we become

36:46the more that we try to control the things that we can't control the more out of control we become yeah and that has like rang true over and over yeah y'all separate and you said that that's how you started it like that's where the real healing began yeah and so the first month you guys are coming to meetings you're starting to recognize that this is your healing and your journey too he's getting a little bit of learning and trying different pathways to grow in that where do we go from there

Pulling up the root

37:21he had to pull up the root cause of his addiction and this is something he's very vocal about he had to dig back into some dysfunctional childhood going on goings on that he had um because out of dysfunction he developed self sufficiency and that LED to pride which LED him to think that he could handle anything and that he didn't have a problem with anything and so he really kind of worked on pulling up that root and he continued to heal and we started spending a little bit more time together but we still stayed apart a good bit it was almost like we were dating because he went to a wedding with me last August we started going to football games um my sister in law had a birthday party at her house

38:12whenever they're with him so we started spending more and more time together as he continued to heal so it was like we were at such dissension initially um and so broken that it took five months for both of us to to heal both of us had to heal so

Community, deception and seeing recovery is possible

38:34what were some practices that you started implementing in your healing during that time um I think coming weekly to meetings was a huge help because I was around a community of people that had gone through the same thing that I did it one the one of the by products of addiction is deception and that almost hurts more than the addiction itself is being lied to and just being around a group of people and they all said the same thing you know I would look my spouse straight in the eye and say have you been drinking and they would look straight at me and say no way um there's just something about the correlation with addiction and deception that just goes hand in hand that's part of the the evilness of it so it was nice to be around other people that had

39:24had witnessed that too um it was also nice to be around people whose spouses were a little further along to see that yes recovery is possible and to be around some other folks that were having great success with their spouse's journey it was very encouraging to see that yeah and we talked about that like the fam the family recovery dynamic is its own separate thing from individuals that are walking in their recovery this is your spouse and you said that like we have history and I didn't want to throw away a 29 year marriage because you share you share lives like you're intertwined it's not a somebody that you're born into to love it's the person you chose to love right and you took vows to the sickness and in health and

40:16you know you got kids and you got families and responsibilities like it's it's just a completely different dynamic the substance became a problem but even more so what hurt them the most was the secrecy and the lying and the betrayal of it and so even when you remove the substance the aftermath of those things are still there and I'm guessing now since y'all are further along in your journey y'all are still trying to figure out some of those things from that hers I think just like anything they're just you know healing is a process um you know where we were six months ago is you know we're better today than we were six months ago we'll probably be better six months from now than we are today

Healing from deception

41:03um the deception is the biggest you know being lied to being deceived you know I would almost rather have him look at me and say you know what I am sloshed right now than for me to look at him and be like have you been drinking and he look at me and say no why would you think that no of course not when it's you know evident that he that he was

Does she still drink?

41:23do you drink or has that I know that's a topic that we talk a lot about in there that people tiptoe around and I know that's different for each relationship but so I was very very vocal with him like hey if if this causes you to stumble in your journey I will never drink again that's how strong I felt about his recovery um and his response for me was always this is my journey you know I it it it didn't bother him it if I drink I drink white wine that's never been a temptation for him so um I still do do I drink it every night or drink it in the no of course not it's more when you know I go out with friends or maybe a Friday or Saturday night he

42:13the good thing is he he loves there's so many non alcoholic beers now and for him that works and you know we may sit out on a Friday night he'll have his non alcoholic beer and I'll have a glass of wine um but it's definitely helped me cut back on on drinking for sure yeah um because I see how good he feels all the time and you know I'm in my mid 50s and I'm not getting any younger and and that stuff is harder and harder to tolerate the older we get so it's definitely been a good it's been good for me

Where the marriage is now

42:47so where are you guys at now in your journey in your marriage it's never been better I'll be honest it it and it's so funny to look back because I feel like not that I would ever want to replicate some of the things that we went through but because we went through that and we're on the other side we're so much stronger we're stronger than we ever have been and I know campus told his sister you know I never knew that love could be so deep um so it is a whole different ball game now and I don't think we would have been there had we have not like I said earlier I don't think we would have been there had we have not gone through such tribulations with this um in fact hemp is fishing now

43:36and he texts me every day and he said Katherine this is a whole different ball game just the the oceans bluer the skies are bluer I'm just here for the event now I was a little apprehensive about him going um but I'm at I'm at peace about it right now

Staying connected: coffee, prayer, dog walks, hiking

43:56are there any things that you guys do to stay connected and checked in with each other we do a lot so one thing that I did mention is we're both very strong in our faith that's that's been kind of the backbone of our marriage even even with the addiction going on we are both very very strong in our faith so I get up before him he calls me my his barista cause I bring him coffee in bed every day and we have time every morning it is our special time and we we pray together and we have conversations before we go to work it's the first thing we do and um so that's something we do religiously and then we have a dog and we walk the dog every night together we've always done that but it's just a little bit more intentional now

44:47also I'm a big like outdoor person and so you know HAMP has really enjoyed hiking we go on a ton of there's so many places to hike around here um that's been kind of our fun thing to do um so those are those are a couple of the things that we do to stay connected and to stay grounded and I know you both are getting kind of involved too um cause I know he goes and he does give back and does outreach and yeah you know you've kind of stepped into leading the spouses group sometimes and and I love I love just seeing y'all walk into a room cause it's such a light um but what about you know

How the family is doing

45:36the rest of the family like how's that like now it's taking time you know again time heals all wounds um you know my son especially he's a real sensitive person and had a very large guard up um against his dad and rightly rightfully so because there were so many times I was convinced that Hampton would never pick up a a drop of alcohol again and I would say something to Hampton and he would say you know you said this to me before you said this to me before and something would happen so rightfully so he had a large guard up um the girls are cautiously optimistic but you know we've had successful holidays and a week long family vacation and I think the longer they are around and see us in this new light

46:32the better they feel about things as well I won't say that the kids are 100% healed but I would say that they are light years from where they were that Father's Day of 2025

Rebuilding trust

46:46do you trust your husband today I do I can honestly say that I do and I always trusted him just I've always trusted him it was just trusting around the drinking and hiding it that's what I lost trust in but but it it's taking me a long time to get there but I do and I feel like and he talks a lot about putting new links in the armor of sobriety and I just continue to see him do doing that through you know volunteering and leading meetings and going to meetings and you know mentoring others and staying spiritually grounded and he said that he's been doing life with one arm behind his back and just to be free of that he said you know

47:33at first I would tell people that alcohol was like poison to me like I'm allergic to alcohol I can't I can't drink it he said but now where I am in my recovery is that I'm free from addiction I'm set free from it and I don't want it and he said once that paradigm shift happened from I can't have it to I I don't want it um because he sees how great life can be without it and he says even you know I sleep great I have great you know I now have a great relationship with my spouse um my work is better I feel like I'm so much more productive with work with a house when he first came back he was he was on a

48:21a tirade with chores around the house I mean he painted the whole house when he first came back and every little thing that could possibly be broken in our house he fixed and we had gates that needed to be replaced um you know he put out pavers I mean he he really just went on a Tangent and I think that might have been part of the recovery process too because he felt so good it was just almost like the Energizer Bunny he's kind of slowed down a little bit on that but for him just seeing how free he is and how good he feels is I mean it's I just can't describe how great it is or maybe it was just a visual of like repair yeah yeah it's interesting you say that

49:07that was the first when he first started coming back around again last summer he would come back around for two reasons and and and there's a little bit of um symbolism about it um well for one we have this hole that keeps emerging in our front yard that is some type of rat so he kept bearing the hole but also our back porch needed painting and so he would come over every weekend and we would paint that back porch which took a while because it needed several coats but that was kind of our part of our healing process and it does to me show some symbolism of restoring healing you know making things clean and new again so it's gonna take a couple coats it and it took a couple of coats

49:55it took a it took quite a few coats to get rid of the damage below

A repaired porch and what's next

50:02for sure so what's next for you guys cause you know your kids are grown they're not in the house I know y'all are in recovery y'all are doing okay you're approaching third like what what's your marriage is better than it than it's ever been um I told him so we have all these places that we want to travel um now my mom has had some recent health struggles that might kind of dissuade us from traveling quite as much but we're getting ready to go to Banff Canada um which he would never want to go there in his prior state but it's just beautiful so that's gonna involve a lot of hiking and just a lot of touring and sightseeing we're gonna be there in the fall so um some of the leaves are gonna be bright yellow

50:50it's kind of what they're known for um we probably have some weddings coming up with our kids in the next couple of years probably one wedding is gonna transpire in the next year or two so we've got that to look forward to um but you know we kind of lead a little bit of a quiet life and I love it um you know we're we're very content on a Friday night sitting on our porch you know walking our dog Oreo picking up food from the blockhouse down the street from us um it's just it's a nice place to be

Hope for other spouses

51:29so before we wrap up um if there's anybody that were to come across this and they hear this episode and they're struggling their marriage might be on the fence of not knowing what to do what is the hope you would want to give to somebody else yeah there is hope um recovery is possible um you as a spouse cannot control that recovery process again you can encourage but not control it um life is so much better in sobriety um lean on friends family support groups you know for us prayer is such an integral part of who we are

52:19in our journey we leaned heavily on that but um you know sometimes like a diamond you gotta get roughed up a little bit before you shine and that's possible yeah anything else you wanna share before we go I don't think so I've I've shared it all so I've bared my soul on this episode so yeah thanks for having me well I'm glad you did thank you Catherine yeah thanks