Caregivers and an Abusive Addict / Alcoholic

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Call 866-WIN-ASIA or to see chickens and other animals to donate, go to crittercampaign.org. Welcome to Hope for the Caregiver. I am Peter Roseburger and I am so glad that you are with us today.

This is the nation's number one show for you as a family caregiver. How are you feeling? How are you holding up? How are you doing? How are you hanging in there?

So many people are putting themselves between a vulnerable loved one and an even worse disaster. But does anyone ask about the caregiver? Well, yeah, we do. And we're glad you're with us. 877-655-6755.

877-655-6755 is always with me. Well, sometimes he's been out a couple of times and then our hearts sunk with despair and we sat down by the waters of Babylon and wept. Well, there is a balm in Gilead. There is.

Gracie Siggs, that song. I'm well aware. That is a wonderful, wonderful piece. But no, John Butler is with me and John is also known as the Count of Mighty Disco.

Been helping produce this show now in his eighth year. It's hard to believe that, isn't it? I know. Well, I mean, I hear time passes in one direction.

Not if you're Doc Brown. I saw the news, by the way, that they're going to have a flying car that we're getting closer to that. Did you see that? Finally. We were supposed to have this five years ago, according to Robert Zemeckis.

Well, Marty McFly. No, that was just a side. John, I got a note from a lady who joined our Facebook group. Now we have a group for Hope for the Caregiver on Facebook.

Now we have a page for Hope for the Caregiver, which we live stream the show on, which we're doing right now. But we also have a group that is just a little bit more sequestered away so that caregivers can kind of post comments or whatever that's going on. They feel a little bit more comfortable in a less public environment because I moderate all of it.

I have no other admins for that. That's just me. But I got a email from a lady and I was really quite moved. And I wanted to start off today's show with you and I just talking about this.

A couple of weeks ago on the radio broadcast that we do on Saturdays that is live and it's 200 something stations. We had a call about alcoholism, which we've talked about a lot on this show. That is not something that a lot of people associate with the family caregiver, but I do because I think the principles are still the same. I think that you're dealing with a chronic impairment. I think that this thing is way beyond your control.

It's not going to go away by anything you could wish or think. And wherever there's a chronic impairment, there's a caregiver. That's my belief system and I'm standing on it. Yeah, well, and there are some of the more, let's say photogenic situations where, you know, oh, this ends up being this, you know, a tragic but noble situation or something like that where, you know, someone is, you know, nobody did anything quote wrong in this. It's just it's a situation that's been imposed on you. But addiction carries a big stigma and oftentimes people like to, you know, it's easy to overlook because of that because it's a little bit of a nasty booger. The belief system is you can just will yourself to stop drinking and technically that's not wrong, but that's a little bit simple because there is a place where you have to have significant help in order to fight this addiction issue here.

Exactly. Oftentimes, I put it in the same context as maybe like a mental illness or a personality disorder where you're not going to get through this on your own, but you're also not going to get through it unless you hustle, unless you really put effort into it. You could be born with a disease or an impairment. You're not necessarily born an alcoholic or an addict. You may have tendencies in the family you're raising and so forth. So it's an acquired disease, if you will.

But then again, so is type two diabetes. Oh, yeah. Don't go into meddling now. Anyway, I talk about this and I had a conversation on the air about this. A lady called in and she was in an abusive situation with an alcoholic husband. And I made the comment that it is okay for you to distance yourself from this. That you are not chained to this individual in that sense that you have to stay with them out of some sense of misplaced obligation. Well, and it's a real rough one because vows were made and that weighs heavily. Yeah. Doesn't mean they have to get divorced, that the relationship is permanently over and there can't be any reconciliation. But it also means that you are not required to stay in the house and be a punching bag. Correct.

Yes. Because if you're in the worst case scenario, if you're not around anymore, if this goes the worst possible way, then there's nothing good you can do that individual anymore. And it ends up being very grim sometimes.

So some less grim but still really terrible decisions are on the table. Because sitting there being a punching bag, if that's all it is, that is unacceptable. Well, it is. You do not have to condemn the relationship to divorce or irreconcilable something. Whatever. Yeah, yeah, yeah. That is, the relationship can be restored.

It can be patched, if you will. But if you're just getting the crap knocked out of you and you're being abused on a regular basis, it's okay for you to distance yourself. And it's actually okay for you to distance yourself no matter what's going on. Distancing doesn't mean divorce. It just means that you're having a little bit of detachment from this, however much is needed for you to be able to breathe and be safe. Right. And finding the appropriate level of that can be difficult.

If you need to go stay at mom's house or something like that in the immediate thing or if there is a... I hate to give examples because people tend to latch onto those and look at the reasons why the metaphor is not perfect. Because no metaphor is perfect.

That's the idea behind the metaphor. But just that there are things that can feel way more permanent or antithetical to our moral code or whatever than they really are. Well, here are the responses I got. As I talked to the lady, I said, it's really okay for you to distance yourself from this and get to a place of safety for you. And then I got an email from someone who said that I should have come after this with a sense of equipping this particular person being abused to take authority in the name of Jesus and get this guy delivered and make the alcohol, lead them to Christ and make the alcoholic be delivered and set free from this so that they can go on and live their life together. And I wrote back to the person who said the latter and I said in a place of great restraint because they had a long epistle. I mean, it was a very long letter on how I was just not basically being a person of faith strong enough to be able to tack this thing.

And I wrote back and I said, thank you for your comments. We'll take them under consideration. That's all I said.

I just didn't feel like mixing it up with them because it was going to be a labor-intensive process that I just did not have the ability to do. Right. And we can go for the comforting absolutes of faith often and that's what they are. They're comforting absolutes and the world is messy and we don't know why it is. I'm a person of deep faith. Right. And I would speak to these things from a scriptural, strong faith standpoint.

Because that's the language this individual is using. Well, and I use this, but I firmly believe that people can be delivered of this. But I also just as firmly believe that if you're going to pickle your brain with drugs or alcohol for any length of time, even if you stop today and never touch this stuff again, the effects of this will be felt for a lifetime, most likely. Well, in the same way that, like if there is an amputation, those effects are felt for a lifetime. I was going to go there.

I'm well aware. Well, you know, Gracie is no longer falling asleep at the wheel, but the effects of her accident are permanent and here for a lifetime. And so that is the rubric that I bring to this, the way I look at it.

Now, people may disagree, whatever, but I have landed on this place based on a lengthy amount of experience and a lengthy amount of study and a whole lot of people that I've talked to about this. That, you know, if somebody has been drinking and abusing a spouse for 10, 15 years and then they stop drinking today, go down and they get saved and they are on the straight and narrow. The impact of what they have done to their relationships and the behaviors involved in these relationships will take a lifetime to detangle. There may be reconciliation, but it'll take a lifetime to detangle this. Exactly. I was going to get to that at some point, but I was going to start with just the effects on their body and their mind are real physical effects, but you jump to the end of it, which is fantastic.

The other things that are affected in a real way are the relationships that they have. We do forgive and it's difficult to forget, but it's going to stand out. Well, my dad has a statement that I love. God forgives instantly. I believe that. Man takes a while.

Nature never does. Oh, I like your dad. He's been on the show a couple of times. Step nine of any type of recovery program is making amends and learning to take responsibility for the actions that wounded other people. But if you make amends as somebody who's in any kind of recovery, that is no- Have you forgotten that call? I have. That's a call. That's a rough call.

It is. And making amends does not, and by the way, I've made some amends in my life. Hopefully we all have. I'm very practiced at this, but making amends is not a guarantee that this is going to be reconciled. And it's important to make amends and you don't make amends to reconcile, you make amends because it's the right thing to do and that's your responsibility. Correct. Yeah. We had a show six, eight months ago that was all about apologies and the right way to make- Oh, I love that show.

That was really, really good. And an apology is not made with any sort of expectation. You're not making the apology to make the other person feel better.

You're not making the apology to make you feel better. You're doing it because it is the right thing to do. And if they don't want it, then if they tell you to go pound sand or whatever, then that's on them. But you still have a responsibility. Correct.

You absolutely have a responsibility to do it. And so this lady's getting the crap beat out of her and being abused by her husband. And I assume you mean like literally she is getting- She's getting beat up. She's a battered woman. She's a battered woman.

Yeah, yeah, yeah. And she has written to me and maybe even listening to the show right now through our groups. And it's just a beautiful letter that she was able to disconnect from this and is trying to work through a path of healing and how much it meant to her that somebody gave her permission to do that.

I mean, I don't have that authority to do it. Of course. But it's one of those things where we're only as sick as our secrets. And we are in these isolation bubbles with dysfunction. And if somebody is able to penetrate into that with the lifeline of truth, they said, you know, it is okay for you to go over here to safety. That's a wonderful thing. It can be very, very powerful. I applaud her initial steps. And I want to continue to talk about that, why that affects, what that means to the family caregiver.

And we'll talk about that when we come back. This is Hope for the Caregiver. This is Peter Rosenberger. 877-655-6755. 877-655-6755.

If you want to be a part of the show, we'll talk to you in just a moment. Have you ever struggled to trust God when lousy things happen to you? I'm Gracie Rosenberger, and in 1983, I experienced a horrific car accident leading to 80 surgeries and both legs amputated. I questioned why God allowed something so brutal to happen to me.

But over time, my questions changed, and I discovered courage to trust God. That understanding, along with an appreciation for quality prosthetic limbs, led me to establish Standing with Hope. For more than a dozen years, we've been working with the government of Ghana and West Africa, equipping and training local workers to build and maintain quality prosthetic limbs for their own people. On a regular basis, we purchase and ship equipment and supplies.

And with the help of inmates in a Tennessee prison, we also recycle parts from donated limbs. All of this is to point others to Christ, the source of my hope and strength. Please visit standingwithhope.com to learn more and participate in lifting others up. That's standingwithhope.com. I'm Gracie, and I am standing with hope. Welcome back to Hope for the Caregiver.

I am Peter Rosenberger. This is the show for caregivers, about caregivers, hosted by a caregiver, and we're glad that you're with us. 877-655-6755, 877-655-6755, if you want to be a part of the show. This broadcast today is for our podcast, and we also stream it live on social media and so forth. And then we do the radio broadcast on Saturdays live, and we're on a couple hundred stations on that one.

And we'd love to have you just be a part of all this. We podcast everything we do, and that's at our website, hopeforthecaregiver.com, and you can see the podcast. It's displayed there. Just sign up for it. It's wherever podcasts are. I mean, it's on everything. John, did you know there's about 7,000 podcast platforms now?

Oh, I'm sure there are. Yeah, yeah. Everybody's got to get in on it.

We'll figure it out whenever Amazon comes through and does everything. It's really kind of weird the way they do all these things, but I personally believe in the medium of it's still talk radio. And however you distribute it, and talk radio works, and I've loved talk radio. I've loved it for years. It's got an intimacy to it that other mediums sometimes lack. And we're doing interesting things like with live broadcasts on Facebook, and a little more interaction, and things like that.

But the call-in radio broadcast is still wonderfully loved. Well, and also I wanted to let you guys know this. All of this is part of our organization Standing With Hope. You've heard Gracie's story with Standing With Hope. She founded this many years ago to do prosthetic limbs for fellow amputees. And we, this week alone, sponsored another man's leg. He needed a replacement leg. He's over in Ghana, and we've been treating him now for 13 years, because amputees go through a lot of parts, and prostheses, and so forth.

And as they grow, or their limbs change, or whatever. And so we sponsored that leg that he got this week. And we also purchased several more gallons of resin, which that's a key component in building a prosthetic leg. And each gallon of resin can make, you know, five or six legs. And so when you have a, you know, you take a mold, and you fit that to the amputated limb, and then you attach the pylon, and the foot, and the knee, and all that stuff to that.

But that's, it makes an acrylic resin socket that's very firm and lightweight with carbon fiber, and all that kind of stuff. And we purchased that. And then we've got a new partner with our limb program. We've moved it from Tennessee, John. I don't know if I told you this or not, but we moved it from Tennessee to Arizona. And it is in a facility, a prison run by CoreCivic.

And the inmates volunteer to do a recycled limb program, where we send used limbs from all over the country, and inmates receive them in, and then they take the limbs apart so that we can recycle all the different parts of it. And it's in a facility way out in Eloy, Arizona. Huh. Yeah, because you can't buy, like, you know, they don't use two-inch drywall screws, you know. These are specialized pieces of equipment. Right.

And titanium stuff and all that. But do you know where Eloy, Arizona is, John? I do not.

I do not. It's way down at the south of Arizona. Okay.

Okay. It's south Odey border. No, it's not quite south of the border, but it's a facility down there. And it's kind of cool that inmates participate in this. And it gives them something unusual to do that they enjoy doing. And I appreciate very much this program, faith-based programs, work in facilities. Well, we'd like to get to a point as a society where, you know, yes, punitive things are often necessary, but the more that we can rehabilitate people and make, like, prison doesn't, I don't know, I'm not a scholar in this area, but I would love it if it didn't have to be this really terrible experience for people. That there can be a growth experience as opposed to a punitive one. I could not agree more. And I've looked at the research and they've shown this, CoreCivic showed me this, that faith-based programs, the recidivism rate that goes on with them is so much different than without.

Because they don't come back. If they get that positive reinforcement of participating in these things, no matter what it is, and there's all kinds of different programs that they offer, and this is going to be located, it's been in the facility there in Nashville, but we're moving it to the facility in Arizona, and it's going to be in their hobby shop, which I thought was good. Oh, that's good, that's good. Hey, who didn't like shop class, you know? They don't allow me to get around shop tools a lot because I'm a pianist and because of my past history. But I still remember my shop teacher in seventh grade, you know? I have a story that I don't think I've ever told you. I had one of the teachers that influenced me the most. I had a teacher in, I went to the VoTech, because I was very good academically, and I went through a lot of stuff quicker than I should have. In the last two years of high school, I took two hours of drafting, as in, you know, you draft whatever. You know, blueprints or any kind of thing. That would explain your love of calligraphy, I guess.

Exactly, exactly. And the gentleman who was my drafting teacher really reminds me of the guy in, or one of the teacher in Starship Troopers, because this gentleman had an amputated arm, and he was the drafting teacher. And here you are working with an amputee ministry.

Yes, but he had a hook for a left hand, and he could letter, like write letters with that hook, better than anybody in the class could with their physical hands, you know. That's pretty cool. By the way, we do accept arms in this recycling program, and so if you know of somebody that wants to donate a used prosthetic limb, hand, foot, doesn't matter, whatever, we'll take it.

It's standingwithhope.com slash recycle, standingwithhope.com slash recycle, and it's an extraordinary thing. And back to your shop thing, I think that's one of the greatest travesties we've done in our country, is remove the emphasis on voc-tech and all these things, because I think we've done a tremendous disservice on so many young people, because let's face it, college is… Well, and we were talking about Mike Rowe. Mike Rowe, yeah, Mike Rowe. And he had a great speech before Congress. The patron saint of voc-tech. Oh, yeah, absolutely.

He has done more jobs than anybody else. But, you know, college is, when you take on $80,000 to $100,000 for a Chinese art history degree, you know, and you're in debt when you get out and you can't really make that back, versus I'm going to go down to an apprenticeship path and go into electrical work or welding, I have come to truly respect welders. I see a lot of them out here in this area. In fact, I had some of them fix Gracie's wheelchair, because we had… Oh, yeah, we talked about this. Yeah, aluminum welding. And that's a little bit different than regular welding.

Oh, aluminum welding. That's crazy. Yeah, yeah, yeah. It's an art. And so these are things that I just look at with incredulity of how wonderful these skill sets are.

And I'm learning a few of them out here in Montana, John, by the way. Oh, I'm sure you are. And I was watching my father-in-law yesterday on a tractor. We were moving some dirt around to make the driveway a little bit more level for Gracie when she gets in and out, because it's a little bit on the thing. And he's up there, up on the back two wheels, popping a wheelie, and he's 84.

Yeah. Hey, son, we got a little off track, but we're going to get back on this when we come back. This is Hope for the Caregiver. This is Peter Rosenberger, 877-655-6755, 877-655-6755. Healthy caregivers make better caregivers. We'll be right back.

Hey, this is Peter Rosenberger. Have you ever helped somebody walk for the first time? I've had that privilege many times through our organization, Standing with Hope, when my wife Gracie gave up both of her legs following this horrible wreck that she had as a teenager. And she tried to save them for years, and it just wouldn't work out.

And finally she relinquished them and thought, wow, this is it. I mean, I don't have any legs anymore. What can God do with that? And then she had this vision for using prosthetic limbs as a means of sharing the gospel, to put legs on her fellow amputees, and that's what we've been doing now since 2005 with Standing with Hope. We work in the West African country of Ghana, and you can be a part of that through supplies, through supporting team members, through supporting the work that we're doing over there.

You can designate a limb. There's all kinds of ways that you can be a part of giving the gift that keeps on walking at standingwithhope.com. Would you take a moment and go out to standingwithhope.com and see how you can give?

They go walking and leaping and praising God. You can be a part of that at standingwithhope.com. As a caregiver, think about all the legal documents you need. Power of attorney, a will, living wills, and so many more. Then think about such things as disputes about medical bills. What if, instead of shelling out hefty fees for a few days of legal help, you paid a monthly membership and got a law firm for life? Well, we're taking legal representation and making some revisions in the form of accessible, affordable, full service coverage.

Finally, you can live life knowing you have a lawyer in your back pocket who, at the same time, isn't emptying it. It's called Legal Shield, and it's practical, affordable, and a must for the family caregiver. Visit caregiverlegal.com. That's caregiverlegal.com.

Isn't it about time someone started advocating for you? Visit caregiverlegal.com. www.caregiverlegal.com.

An independent associate. He'll give you hope for tomorrow, joy for your sorrow, strength for everything you go through. Remember, he knows the plans he has for you. Welcome back to Hope for the Caregiver. Dr. Roseberger, so glad that you're with us. 877-655-6755.

He does know the plans he has for you. That is my wife, Gracie, on her new CD, Resilient. You can get a copy of that today. Just go to hopeforthecaregiver.com right on the front page. You'll see the copy for CD. You'll see the word donate.

Whatever you want to donate to this organization, the tax-deductible gift, we'll just send you a copy, our gift to you. You'll love the CD. Gracie's the real deal. You'll just love what she's able to bring to the table. All right, we got a little off track on our last discussion because I was talking about alcoholics and addicts and caregivers. The point of this was this lady made a tough decision to step away from an abusive situation. A marriage. Yeah, a marriage where her husband is now an abusive alcoholic.

And she is taking the first steps towards putting her life back together. It doesn't mean they can't be reconciled. I had a friend of mine in Nashville who was a pretty significant alcoholic and his marriage ended. And he and his wife divorced. Neither one of them ever remarried. 32 years later, they remarried. And he went back and made all kinds of amends.

I mean, he really worked hard at it and organized it. And then he was able to do that. I thought that was just an extraordinary story of redemption and love. And they never stopped loving each other. But it was so destructive for her to be with him. And so she made the call.

But he, on the other hand, worked at it. And they dated for a long time after he became sober and was working his program and so forth. And so you don't have to... The relationship is not destined for the trash heap. But there may be a season where you have to step away. Right. And we are often... I don't want to say robbed, but there are circumstances that can deny us that big happy ending, of course. Yes. A car wreck, a whatever.

It could be anything. This is not to say that if you do everything right, you're always going to come out on top. And that's... Picard had a great quote about this. Who did? It was Picard. Jean-Luc Picard. You prime directive Kenninga. Oh, yeah. You can do everything right and still fail. That's not injustice. It's just life.

Well, as one surgeon said, the surgery went perfectly. The patient died. And these things happen with it. Now, how does this apply to caregivers in other situations? Well, one of the things that I get a lot of calls about is a family member dealing with a father who is dealing... Or a mother who's dealing with dementia. They become Alzheimer's, whatever.

They become incredibly difficult to deal with. And they're still stuck in that whole thing of I've got to honor my mother and father. And for whatever reason, this phrase just popped in my head and I stick with it. I'd never heard anybody else say it, so I'm just going to kind of put it out there. This is one of my Peterisms, if you will.

We have Butler-Fors, our metaphors from John Butler, our Butler-Fors, and we have Peterism. This is one that says, you're asked by scripture, you're commanded by scripture to honor your mother and father, but you are not commanded to honor Alzheimer's. You are not commanded to honor alcoholism. You are not commanded to honor that level of dysfunction.

You're just not. And it's okay to separate the person. Yeah, you're not commanded to honor all of their actions no matter what.

No. And you can honor them without having to... The disease takes over. And you're honoring your disease at that point.

And that's not appropriate. The disease needs to be dealt with. And you can honor them. And if there's no recovery path, such in the case with Alzheimer's, where there's no recovery path, they're not going to get better from Alzheimer's, you can still honor them.

You honor the extraordinary person they are by taking care of what they become. But not to the point that you allow the disease to dictate your life. And that's the same thing with alcoholism. You do not have to allow addiction and alcoholism from somebody else to dictate how you live your life.

You don't have to wake up every day and ask somebody else what kind of day you're going to have. Just don't. Oh, that's a good one. Yeah. And so that's the point of this.

Fall asleep. Do you know that there's a pandemic going on? You know, I read a couple of stories here and there.

You saw something on Twitter. Yeah, yeah, yeah. No, I went into Walmart and they said I had to wear a face mask. I'm like, cool, but why? Hey, pants are not required, but face masks evidently are in Walmart. I just thought they were telling me I was a little bit ugly.

They told me I had to wear two face masks. The reason I'm referencing that is because you know of our work for many years with prosthetic limbs. And we can't go to Ghana right now.

And I certainly am not going to take Gracie over there. We've been going to Ghana for many, many years to help work with amputees over there. But we've been sending supplies and we're sponsoring more patients, but we're not sending teams right now because we just can't. And we've got patients that are lining up that are really needing some quality prosthetic care. And we're contracting out with prosthetic providers. They're in West Africa, in Ghana, and they're helping these patients that we really are urgently trying to treat. We get them up walking. One of them is, and you know, one of the criterias we have with our patients, John, is we target children and working age adults, children, students and working age adults. And really in that order. Gotcha. We give them a fighting chance to have a productive life with a quality prosthetic limb.

This is what Gracie envisioned after losing her own legs. And it's not that we don't want to help aging or so forth. It's just that that's where our targets are. And lately we've been having a lot of these.

Yeah. And we've had a lot of kids. We've had some students that are getting close to their graduation, but they're constantly needing prosthetic adjustments or a new leg, a new socket, new liners and sleeve. And we're trying to ship things over. We're trying to sponsor things and contract with the workers there to do it. And we could use the help. So I'm asking standingwithhope.com. Would you just take a moment to go out to standingwithhope.com. Look at the work we're doing.

Look what you're seeing and get involved. And you could certainly write us and ask us any questions about it. But we would love to have your help today. We really need it today for any donation amount. Whatever's on your heart.

Doesn't matter. We're going to send you a copy of Gracie's CD. And we just want you to know that this is what we're serious about doing. We've been doing this for a long time. We can't go over there in person, but guess what?

We could still help them get up and walk. And you could be a part of that today. It's a gift that keeps on walking. I came up with that myself, John. Oh, yeah. Did you?

Pretty proud of that. The gift that keeps on walking. But it does. It does. Yeah, it's true. And with Gracie being a double amputee herself, we understand that in our world. In fact, we're dealing with prosthetic stuff right now with her.

Because she's constantly needing adjustments and so forth. And so we understand the need and we're asking you to help with it today. So go to standingwithhope.com today. Thanks so much.