Faith Over Addiction | Biblical Idenity and Boundaries for Loving Someone with Addiction

What kind of mom do you want to be?  In a very vulnerable interview, Shelley Anderson of Recovery Coaches of Instagram shares her story about alcohol, codependency and motherhood. From childhood, Shelley always dreamed of being a mom. Yet, after she gave birth to her son, life seemed overwhelming and unmanageable.  Her dream became a nightmare of hungover mornings and difficult relationships. Unti...

What if the mean girl is you?  You standing there looking in the mirror and saying ugly things to yourself.  What do you do then? God gave us free will to choose our thoughts.  We can choose to be positive or negative thinkers. Today we give you a few tools to stop the mean girl in her tracks. Free Gfit : Get this free list of Christian affirmations that spell out who you are in God – actual in Go...

Have you ever talked with your husband on the phone and thought "He just does not get what I am saying!" You can hear it loud and clear on this week's podcast! I even left in the rough stuff.  No marriage is perfect and stressors like job changes, moves, deaths or children can bring out the worst. Jerry's new job change is triggering some deep stuff for me.  Maybe you have been there too?  Issues...

Join us as we interview Kim Avery of Kimaverycoaching.com about the differences between coaching and counseling. Kim is part of the Professional Christian Coaching Institute and one of the co-hosts of the Professional Christian Coaching Today Podcast. Kim beautifully illustrated the differences between coaching and counseling with great personal stories.  She also teased out how the forward motion...

How are you handling sobriety as a family? Is it all rainbows and unicorns?  Or are you frustrated with the way things are not changing? You see even though our therapist gave us tools to use in our marriage after sobriety we did not have a clue how to implement them on a daily, weekly, monthly basis.  We were struck.  Willing and wanting to change but no real idea how to take the action steps to...

We laughed out loud this week while interviewing Patty H. Scott on the subjects of codependent parents, teenagers and marriage. Patty is the author of three books, the mother of two sons and the wife of a surfer, skater dude turned husband and family leader.  What she says may shock you with its simplicity. Find her work at Pattyhscott.com   Free Gfit : Get this free list of Christian affirmations...

Can I just say AHHHHHHHH! Huge changes mean huge stress. Moves, job changes, deaths, teenagers, it can overwhelm you completely. When your days are full of never-ending do's, stress can be a regular part of your life.  As stress wears on you may want to alleviate it with habits that you thought you conquered. Big stressors can cause a return to undesirable habits. In this podcast, I bust Jerry res...

A new addition to the Sober on Purpose Podcast interviews. As we were wrapping up this first segment of codependency I reached out to another podcaster, Tres Adamas, Director of Arizona Christian Counseling and host of Ask a Christian Counselor. While many families struggling with addiction seek counseling it is often hard to know what to look for in a counselor. Listening to Tres one of the first...

As moms, caregivers, possible codependents, we spend our days running around multi-tasking, doing endless errands, cooking and cleaning, working and taking care of our families and the household. You may find yourself more emotional, irritable, or depressed.  Learning how to manage stress can help alleviate symptoms, prevent illness and addiction.  Self-care in families in recovery is not selfish;...

Stuck! For years, I felt that the Joyous Family was stuck. Just stuck in the same rotating issues over and over again. Crisis after crisis just kept banging on our door. Why, even after sobriety, did family life still feel, well, yucky? What keeps codependent families stuck? Then I walked into a Christian seminar by Jeff VanVonderen call Wounded by Shame, Healed by Grace. If you watch just a few o...

Parenting is a tough job!  What are the signals that you were parented by a codependent parent?  Are you parenting your kids the same way? Why after all these years do children not come with an operation manual? Are you a codependent parent?  Not just romantic relationships are subject to falling into the unhealthy pattern of codependency.  Parent/child relationships deal with this very issue too....

Exposed!  It is not always easy to hear yourself talk through tough issues that are still happening Could you hear me if I told you codependency is only a symptom? The way you choose to respond to a relationship or better yet depend on a relationship is learned. Learned really? Yes! You learned it really early in your life with your primary caregivers. Now as with all learned behaviors you can bla...

Codependence Anynonmous one of the latest 12 Step Groups chose very carefully not to define Codependence but rather list the characteristics of the behaviors person might find themselves practicing Denial Patterns Low Self Esteem Patterns Compliance Patterns Control Patterns Avoidance Patterns What caught my eye were avoidance patterns.  I thought the codependent was just that dependent on the oth...

This is the second in a pair of podcasts on Sponsorship.  Give Ep 11 a listen and then pop in here for the next ideas for finding the right fit with your sponsor.   As I mentioned before, the 12 Steps are a roadmap to recovery, while the sponsor is the navigator.  It may take a couple tries to find the right fit with a sponsor.  That is OK.  The important part is to keep trying. Temporary sponsors...

  Are you codependent?  Yes.  We all have a dependence on others.  When does it turn ugly?  When does dependence turn from normal to destructive?    Wait! Didn't God supply Adam with Eve because He felt it was not good for man to be alone?  (Genesis 2:22)   Aren't we supposed to live in a community with other people especially other Christians?  Codependent Defined Codependence is an emotional and...

Are you ready for silly!  In this episode, Elijah of the Elijah Thinks Podcast interviews us on Marriage and Valentine's Day.  A great Valentine's Day Gift For Him!   This Valentine's Day kids activity is simple yet powerful.  How do we know who we are except by the stories we tell ourselves.  The Bible itself is full of family love stories.  For Valentine's Day kid's fun, tell your love story.  B...

Dare to love the most difficult person in your life this Valentines's month. We all have them a person in our lives that we struggle to love. Maybe it is only a season with a difficult toddler, teen, spouse or co-worker. In Al-anon we say that living with an addict/alcoholic is too much for most of us, alone. Here is a thought to chew on that addict, alcoholic, codependent, rageaholic is a person...

A sponsor is like a great driving instructor.  Having already learned to drive the road to sobriety years ago, a sponsor helps you figure out all the buttons and switches on the car, navigate the highway signs, safely move away from accidents, encourages maintenance and self-control. Plus, They are always encouraging you to make the best choice considering traffic conditions. Think of a sponsor as...

Do you suddenly feel angry, resentful or hurt?  This may be a sign that someone crossed one of your boundaries.  Physical boundaries like a fence around the yard or a locked door signal us that this property belongs to someone else.  The same is true in the emotional landscape.  Physical, emotional and spiritual boundaries among people let us know where I end and you begin. Setting and keeping cle...

Are you walking through the valley of death in 2019 desperately looking for an escape route? Are trapped in a mood-altering addiction that keeps you from starting the journey? Where are you willing to challenge yourself and your relationships this year? How do you need to prepare yourself for the journey? What guides or companions do you need to proceed with the challenges you are going to tackle...

In this week's podcast, we continue on the theme of roles in the family relationship. When any major change happens in a marriage or a family the responsibilities of the members shift.    Sobriety is a big change!   The person with the most visible addiction may have been the scapegoat of the family.  While the person "holding down the fort" is often seen as a saint.  Sobriety brings us what has a...

Do you feel like you are just waiting for the other shoe to drop in your marriage? Sober now, relapse tomorrow? Fear of relapse is real. In fact a high number of people who get sober relapse. Different reasons for different folks cause them to take their eyes off sobriety. In the podcast, we talk in-depth about whose reasonability sobriety is anyway. There is a lot of dignity in working through yo...

This is the third in a series of podcasts about resentments.  This one gives specifics on how to rid your self of resentments.  Here is why: By holding onto the resentment I have to wait until they realize what they  did to free me from my self-imposed prison.  The one thing a resentment does well; it provides me with an opportunity to re-injure myself over and over with my own thoughts and feelin...

  HOW WE CREATED A NO STRESS CHRISTMAS DAY AND YOU CAN TOO! We saved our family Christmas Day by doing nothing. Six or seven Christmases ago we started doing “nothin’ ” for Christmas Day.   It came as a revelation to my husband and I when the boys were really little. You can do this too!  It is lots of fun.  Release the stress.  Stay sane and have a wonderful family day! Join us for Christmas Sere...

As we are all super busy this time of year the Christmas Serenity Hack is packaged in a One Minute Audio message. Bonus! The hack is designed to bring you back to emotional sobriety in a minute or less. You don't even have to stop what you are doing! Listen to the Christmas Serenity Hack. Do it! Then get back to your daily life with more joy and peace.     That is what the season is about right? P...