The Dr. John Delony Show - Controlling a Short Temper, Drinking vs. Alcoholism, & Boundaries with a Bipolar Dad

Episode Date: December 11, 2020

The Dr. John Delony Show is a caller-driven show that gives you real talk on life, relationships and mental health challenges. Through humor, grace and grit, John gives you the tools you need to cut through the chaos of anxiety, depression and disconnection. You can own your present and change your future—and it starts now. So send us your questions at johndelony.com/show or leave a voicemail at 844-693-3291. We want to talk to YOU! Show Notes for this Episode 3:47: How do I control my short temper? 18:18: Teaching Segment: Self-forgiveness 21:38: What is the difference between just drinking and alcohol addiction? 36:42: How do I talk about boundaries with my father who was diagnosed with bi-polar? 44:30: Lyrics of the Day: "She Talks to Angels" - The Black Crowes tags: anger/resentment/bitterness, parenting, reconciliation/forgiveness, addiction, substance abuse, bipolar disorder, family, boundaries These platforms contain content, including information provided by guests, that is intended for informational and entertainment purposes only. The content is not intended to replace or substitute for any professional medical, counseling, therapeutic, financial, legal, or other advice. The Lampo Group, LLC d/b/a Ramsey Solutions as well as its affiliates and subsidiaries (including their respective employees, agents and representatives) make no representations or warranties concerning the content and expressly disclaim any and all liability concerning the content including any treatment or action taken by any person following the information offered or provided within or through this show. If you have specific concerns or a situation in which you require professional advice, you should consult with an appropriately trained and qualified professional expert and specialist. If you are having a health or mental health emergency, please call 9-1-1 immediately.

On today's show, we're going to talk to a brand new dad who is tired of having a short temper and wants to break the generational curse. We're going to talk to a brand new wife who grew up in a teetotaling home, who married someone who did not. We're also going to talk to a young woman who is finally setting boundaries with her bipolar father. Stay tuned. Hey, what's up? I'm John and this is the Dr. John Deloney Show. A live show where we show up and walk alongside people going through all kinds of nonsense. Good stuff, bad stuff, all of it. Trying to help people learn how to be human beings again we talk about everything on this show from from family stuff to relationship stuff religious stuff

it's politics all of it man anything and everything that's going on in your heart in your mind here's the deal you're not alone you. You're not by yourself, right? I don't care. I don't care if you feel like you're alone. I don't care if someone told you, wow, you're a weirdo, man. You're the only one thinking through that. Or if you're just looking in the bathroom mirror with both hands on the counter, staring into your own eyes, wondering, is this really all there is? Am I really by myself? No, you're not. And on this show, I like to take a moment to highlight what is going right in the world. I got an email from Sherry Walker, and here's what Sherry writes. She writes,

Over eight years ago, my daughter and I met the man who would change both of our lives forever. Not only was I a single mom to an eight-year-old girl, but I was also active duty Air Force. Not many civilian men would be willing to take a chance with this type of uncertainty, but my husband, Buck Walker, how dope of a name is the name Buck Walker, by the way. My name's John.

This cat's name is Buck Walker, chose to do just that. Only after a week after we were married, we were notified that I was getting transferred to Texas from Utah, where Buck had lived his entire life. During that time, he put his life on hold to support me in a new job with strenuous hours and set up the home and take care of my daughter, Abby. I was scheduled to work late that one evening, so he let me sleep while he got Abby ready for school. I woke up to him in front of the bathroom mirror using a flat iron for the first time in his life to fix her hair. Buck Walker with a flat iron. Utah transplant in Texas, figuring it out. This is the same man who had limited experience with kids and no experience with

sassy 8-year-old girls. Now she's 16 and he even taught her how to drive. I've never seen a father-daughter relationship quite as close as theirs. Buck Walker, here's to ya. Hats off from Nashville to Utah slash Texas

to all the dads. Figuring it out every day Waking up saying how can I make this one work To the single moms out there Duct taping And super gluing And still killing it Hats off to everybody

But today this one's for you Buck Walker Thank you so much Sherry for writing in On this show we're going to put some positivity out in the world We're going to tell the truth. We're going to walk alongside each other. So whatever's going on in your heart and mind, give me a shout. Go to johndeloney.com slash show and fill out the form. And Kelly and her team will go through those and see if we can get you on the show.

Or you can give me a call at 1-844-693-3291. That's 1-844-693-3291. That's 1-844-693-3291. Let's go straight to the phones. Let's go to Clint in Tuscaloosa, Alabama. My man, Clint. How are we doing? Doing great, Dr. Delaney. How are you, sir?

I'm doing good. All right, so let's go ahead and be honest with the audience here. I know you, Clint. Is that true? Yes, that is true. All right. So I knew you as a undergraduate student, as a graduate student, and you worked for one of my departments at one point at one of the universities that we both worked for and then attended. Is that right? That's correct. Yes, sir. Okay. okay stop saying sir and all that I know you're

from Texas and you're in Alabama so you got double double south there but can we just get it out of the way that I was pretty much the greatest boss you've ever had and probably am ever gonna have oh greatest uh no you were yeah I mean you're the reason why I'm actually in the field of higher education. So watching you at Abilene Christian and kind of grow in your career path is just outstanding. And so you've kind of been a role model to me and to many other, I'm sure, other undergraduates who attended the university. It's just been a blessing. So thank you. I thank you, number one. Number two, if you've noticed, I've since left higher education, so we can talk after the show.

And number three, I will send you a check directly to your inbox, so I appreciate you. I think the kids are using Venmo these days, and so I'll figure out how that works. I actually, Clint, had to text my wife last night to have her Venmo somebody something yesterday and I actually asked James if he could burn me a CD and he looked at me as though I had asked him hey can you help me repair my covered wagon and that's not that's not a lie I want all the Toby Ingway CDs and evidently they're not CDs or mp3s that's not why you called, Clint. So what's up? How are we doing, man? Look, man, I am doing very well. The reason why I wanted to reach out to you

is I've been watching your YouTube videos, and you give great advice for people that I've watched several videos. I've been like, wow, that's great. And I write it down, and I've been practicing it. One that I struggle the most with, however, is having a short temper. And this is something that is generational in my family. So all the Coulter men, I just shouted out my last name there. But all of the men in my family, they basically have this like short temper and I don't know if it just passes along

or passes on. Um, my cousins who are male, they have it. My, uh, my brother, he has it not as bad as I think what I have. Um, and it is just stemmed from since I was a little kid. I mean, I can remember punching a, actually kicking a hole in a wall because I was losing a video game with my brother so things like that and it was all because you know and I witnessed my father do it I'm just having a short temper I witnessed my grandfather having a short temper you know he was riding a horse one time and he was actually trying to break the horse and I was outside I was young I was like papa come on inside you know food's ready and he didn't hear me. So I kept yelling his name. And then he yelled back.

I mean, very angrily and kind of like said some word choice words that I probably shouldn't repeat over the year. And so, you know, and I broke down and was like, oh, my gosh, you know, you know, he hates me. And that happened to my with my dad, too, at times. And most recent. Yeah. Do you have little kids now clint i have i have a little girl now okay and uh she's about five months and i don't want to bring that into my family i don't want her to have see her father like man my dad and when he gets mad he gets mad

like i don't want that i want to be someone where my little girl who grows up can look at her father and be like, you know, when my dad would get upset or mad, he just kind of keeps it to himself. He doesn't yell. He doesn't scream. He just kind of, you know, is able to, you know, work through the anger. And that's where I'm trying to get at is how can I work through this anger? If you want me to give you examples, I can do that. Well, let's do this. First, I want to applaud you for looking into the eyes of a baby girl and saying no more.

That this is, I'm third generation short temper. I'm third generation adult temper tantrum. And this stops with me. And there's a whole bunch of men, Clint, across the country who have got to take that sort of responsibility with who they are, things that are going on in automated responses that they have in their hearts and minds. And that's the only way we're going to fix the messes that we are in right now. And so, dude, high five to you. I'd hug you if you were sitting here. I'm proud of you. Okay. So give me an example. What's the latest one? The latest one was with actually my father.

And it was about two weeks ago. I've lived out here in Tuscaloosa for about three years. And before that, I lived out in Wichita Falls, which was just a couple hours north from where my family lives. And I lived there for about three years. And during that time, I only saw my dad once. He only came out and visited me one time. And the majority of the time, he was like, well, you and your wife, y'all need to come down and visit us. Y'all need to come see us. And we did often because we were just a couple hours. But any time I would bring up, well, why don't you come up and see us? There was always an excuse behind it.

Well, we can't do that. Well, you know, financially we're not able to afford it. Well, you know, we're just not able to because this, this, and that. And so I kind of just let it go. But now that I have a little girl and she was born in the summer, I've reached out to my dad a couple of times like, Hey, when would you be able to come out? And it's a little difficult, of course, with COVID. And of course, now he has some health concerns. But it's about a 10-hour drive from Dallas to Tuscaloosa, and we've made the trip about twice a year. And he won't come see you now? Exactly.

And so the conversation was essentially I just told him, and he has another – he has a grandson has a grandson and they live close to home and he sees him quite often uh a lot and so so in your heart in your head i can guess where this is going in your head your dad doesn't care about your daughter that much your dad doesn't care about because if he did he would do these things right um he doesn't care about – because if he did, he would do these things, right? He doesn't care about your new marriage. He didn't care about your new job. He doesn't want to come see how successful his young son is doing. All these almost moral or character issues are piled up into these actions that your dad is not taking, all right, or aren't taking, which is he's not coming to see you. He's not coming to see his new grandkid, right?

Right. And so – taking, which is he's not coming to see you. He's not coming to see his new kid. Right. Right. And so. So you you. Did you grown man blow up on him or grown man temper tantrum him? Essentially, yes. So I asked him the question or I just basically told him in a very calm manner. I was like, look, you know, this is how I'm feeling. Like, I feel that if the roles were reversed and your grandson had lived 10 hours away that you and you and my stepmom would have driven out and visited. And when I had said that, of course, I was like, this is just how I feel. Trying to sign, telling his dad, hey, look, this is how I feel. And that is when he blew up on me. Like that short temper just kicked in, and he started yelling over the phone, which I do not respond very well.

So if I'm being yelled at, I typically don't have a very good response to it. And so I yell back. And we have this yelling back and forth. And then we just hang up the phone. And then we text back and forth. And it ended up where a couple days later it was like, I'm sorry. And a text message. I'm sorry.

I'm sorry, too. Love you. Love you. And that was it. And so now I'm at the point where I'm just like, you know, I'm not even going to ever ask him to come and visit because I know where it would lead. Sure. All right. So here we go, Clint.

You ready? I'm ready. Here's a couple of things. Some of them are easy. All of this is simple, and all of this is hard. Okay? Simple doesn't mean it's not going to be hard work. Okay?

So the first thing is this. Anger is a gift, as Rage Against the Machine eloquently said. Anger just points you towards things that you care about. And so in that little exchange, your dad cares about his son. He cares about his son's approval. He cares about his son's approval of his job as a dad, his approval of his role as a good man, right? Someone who'd go visit his young child, et cetera, et cetera. My guess is your dad doesn't have a graduate degree. Is that fair?

Correct. Right. So you've got this son and you've got this educated son now. So there's all these barriers between you and your old man. And anger points towards something he cares about. Anger points towards something you care about. You want your daughter to experience a grandparent. Her grandparents.

You want your daughter to experience her granddad her granddad, because you love him. And he's probably a fun, cool guy when you got him hanging out and having a good time. And anger points towards justice. This is the way this is supposed to be. Right. So all those things are good. Where it's not good is when anger takes over and you and your grown dad start throwing crayons at each other, right? And then you take it offline or literally take it online, if you will, and continue thumb-warring each other on the internets, on the iPhones. So here's what I want you to do to break this curse. And it is not genetic. It's not a wiring. You're not predestined to always have a short

temper. This is something you learned and was modeled for you. You may have some gasoline and matches in your basement, right? Which you may have a genetic disposition towards X, Y, and Z. That's not a pass. And I don't care about that stuff. Every time you lose your temper, it's a choice. It's a decision. And so what I want you to do is the next time you get angry, the next time you feel that thing frustrating you, I want you to think of, if you've got one, it's even better. I'm taking this from Terrence Real. If you've got a picture of your dad, I want you to carry it with you in your wallet or in your pocket. And every time you get mad, I want you to pull that picture out.

And I want you to look at it. And I want you to say out loud, I am going to throw a temper tantrum in honor of you instead of loving my daughter. Because every time you throw a temper tantrum, it is a choice to bring tension and pain into the life of your daughter. It's to bring gasoline and fire into the house of a little one and a young marriage of which your daughter will absorb that tension and make it her fault and spend her lifetime trying to solve it, which will then – she will be modeled.

A great solution to this is short, intermittent outbursts, nuclear bombs that just get dropped along a living room, and thus it passes to another generation, right? And so every time you choose to snap, to yell, to slam something, to kick something, to bite back at somebody, I want you to say, and that's for you, Dad. There you go. I chose to high-five you instead of honoring my wife, instead of being a controlled, mature, grown man. Doesn't mean I'm not going to get angry. Doesn't mean I'm not going to get really frustrated.

I chose, Dad, to give you a shout-out instead of modeling for my daughter what a healthy, well, whole dad looks like, what a healthy, well, whole marriage looks like. And here's the thing. You're going to have to learn this. You're going to have to practice it. But I've seen stories where it can be healed literally overnight with the idea that I'm not doing this because it's going to solve anything because it never solves anything. I'm not doing this because I can't control it because that's bullcrap. It is an homage. It's a high five to the past. This one's for you, old man. And what I'm going to challenge you is to stop high-fiving your dad and start hugging and loving your daughter.

Start hugging and loving your wife. Start hugging and loving those hundreds of students you've been put in charge of. Start respecting and honoring the folks that you work for at whatever college and university you're going to work for, go forward, go that way. And Clint, it's such an honor and a blessing to talk to you again. We haven't talked in a decade because you're one of those guys that's turning to face the forest fire, the one that's been raging generationally, and you're going to stand it down and it ends with you. And it ends with you saying either, I'm going to continue to high-five old man, or I'm going to connect with my wife and my daughter. And it's that simple.

You're going to fail. You're going to have to be graceful with yourself. You're going to have to be compassionate with yourself. Here's the thing. While we're here, I want to talk about this real quick. Because, and Clint, this is for you. It kind of lines up perfectly, almost accidentally here. As you transition this from being a third or fourth generation anger head,

addicted to outburst, grown-up temper tantrum thrower, if you will, as you transition this, you're going to have to be graceful with yourself. You're going to have to forgive yourself. And self-forgiveness is an absolutely essential part of living and growing up. And we are terrible at it. Y'all have heard me say this over and over. We so often talk to ourselves in a way

that we would never let somebody else talk to somebody else. We forgive people around us if we're mature, grown-up adults, not if we're children wearing adult clothes, but we forgive people for hurting us. We forgive parents for hurting us. We forgive politicians for screwing up. We forgive people for all sorts of things, but man, we suck at forgiving ourselves. We're terrible at it. In fact, this weekend or this week recently, Peter Atiyah, he's got a podcast called The Drive. After you listen to mine, listen to his. It's incredible. He just

interviewed Kristen Neifers, Kristen Neifs. I think that's her name, Kristen Neifs, she is the expert on self-compassion. You have to talk to yourself in a way that is honoring and lovely and respectful and forgiving. Self-forgiveness is a choice to extend love and compassion and kindness to yourself, right? It's when you have a really rough day and you eat something you probably shouldn't have eaten. You know it's going to make you feel bad. Like the other day on the 12-hour Thanksgiving drive when I ate half a bag of sandwich cookies, I knew that wasn't great. And that next morning when I woke up feeling hungover and all I had had was junk food,

I was compassionate with myself. I had to forgive myself. Hey, that wasn't good for me, for my body, for my parenting, but it happened. Wasn't my best self. Let's go be better today. Right? Unforgiveness prevents you from living in the present and expecting good things in the future because you condemn yourself. You sentence yourself to some sort of punishment that just goes on indefinitely. Stop. Stop. Unforgiveness is costly. The cost of unforgiveness is your integrity, your identity,

your capacity to give and receive love. It's a lie to yourself. So this is for Clint. This is for everyone listening to this. If you're trying to change behaviors, as we get into the new year And you are trying to set new goals And New Year's resolutions Or you're doing hard things Like changing generational trauma

Like Clint's trying to do You're going to stumble and you're going to fall If you're just trying to be a dad Just a regular old humdrum run-of-the-mill dad Or a mom You're going to stumble So be graceful with yourself. Be kind to yourself.

Forgive yourself. And if you can't do it by yourself, get somebody that will walk alongside you. Get a good friend that will say, I forgive you, so you should too, right? Thank you so much for that call, Clint. Let's go to Kirsten in Cincinnati. Kirsten, what is up? Oh, you know, I'm just feeling grateful for you and everyone at Ramsey Solutions and that beautiful rant you just did and to be talking to you on the phone.

Well, I'm grateful for you. How can I help this morning? Good. I'm pretty awesome. So I agree. I fully agree. Yes. Thank you. So my main question would be kind of where's the line between drinking a lot and alcoholism? And then for me, I guess it's pertaining somewhat to my husband. And I'd like to preface with he's an amazing man. He's very kind and thoughtful, hardworking. He treats me with lots of love and kindness and respect and tenderness and makes me feel loved. So I'm in a safe environment and it's good. But I just noticed a lot of times, well, we're both coming from very opposite backgrounds on the topic. It was just never really around.

My parents didn't drink. My grandparents didn't drink. My great grandparents didn't drink. We didn't have alcohol really at family functions. It wasn't until I was older until you start noticing like, oh, some of those family drinks. Yeah, and they're those families, right? Ooh, those families. And growing up in church, it was kind of a, alcohol wasn't great, but it wasn't really elaborately talked about, and it was just kind of, don't get drunk. And so that was the extent of that. And then my husband comes from Irish Catholic backgrounds,

and that's like all they did. They know how to party. That's right. Yes. Yes. And all like great hearted people, fun stuff too. But I will be 31 this week and I didn't have my first adult drink till I was probably 24, 26. I've probably had four or five, just never worth the calories. And I'm somewhat of a controlled person. So I'm like, I'd rather just do nothing than risk trying to figure out stuff. So, but just him specifically, he grew up in a household, though, where his mom was an alcoholic. And she was that way pretty much from drinking age until she was about 40. And then she passed away at 45 due to a health condition. And then his dad was very black and white and he traveled a lot as a

profession. So he'd be gone two, three, four days a week. And he had a one brother who was mentally disabled and the capacity of about a two-year-old. And so a lot of times he would come home and his mom would be passed out on the couch or whatever, and he'd have to fill in and be the adult. So he's had lots of trauma there, right? Yes. Okay. Yes, absolutely.

And so I know... Sorry, go ahead. Go ahead. So bring me down to the apex here. Okay. So we've been married for two years, and I've known him for three. He's 33, I'm 31. And I knew that he drank some before, and it doesn't really bother me when it's social settings or just like here and there.

But I just noticed it kind of creeping up more and more and more. And obviously this past year trying to have the grace of like, well, it is a pandemic and extra stress and things like that. But just where things to kind of watch for, because I so want to protect our connection and not project onto it. And I want boundaries, not barriers. And just how to recognize when a cross is done healthy and I'm going to take a breath. Sure. Okay.

All right. So that was a lot. And you actually called with one question and you asked me about five different questions. Okay. Yes. Sorry. Hey, that's okay. That's all right.

And I can tell it's deep in your heart, and I can tell that you love this guy, and as happens to all of us who get married, all of us who find ourselves in some sort of deep relationship with somebody. And in fact, I'll go bigger than marriage. This happens at work. This happens with friendships. This happens in marriages. This happens in dating relationships. When you find yourself in love with somebody, when you find yourself trusting somebody, when you find yourself in relationship with somebody, deep relationship, and then suddenly a behavior that doesn't line up with your values, doesn't mean it's right or wrong inherently, but it's not a part of your values, is a part of theirs.

Right? Right. And you're faced with a different picture of what something looked like. I was raised like you were. There wasn't any alcohol in my house. There wasn't alcohol in my granddad's house. It was a shock to me to find out in my probably 20s

that my granddad used to drink beer. And he said to the family, I quit drinking beer. I quit buying beer when I had to buy milk for my babies. It was an economic decision. And years down the road, I ingested that as a moral and character thing. My dad was a homicide detective. He worked every day in the lives of people who had one drink too many and suddenly the rest of their life has changed.

Right? And so, again, I absorbed that as a moral and character issue. Then I went to college. The statute of limitations hasn't run out on all those things, and so I won't tell all those stories, but I came to understand that there were some really extraordinary young men and women who I got to meet who were from all over the country who grew up with different attitudes around alcohol. I had some close, close friends, two of which are brothers, two of which are my best friends on planet earth, Irish Catholic. And you know what they had? Way more fun than I did.

They did. They danced more than I did. They sang more than I did. They could play music better than I could. And they had a family that celebrated big time, right? With good drinks and good food and good camaraderie. And so those were initially value issues for me. Whoa, this is, as you said so eloquently, one of those families. And it turns out that second to my parents, their parents had a major influence on me in a positive way. Their friendship has had a major impact on me relationally throughout my life. And so it could go on and on and on.

All that to say is this. Your husband has experienced a lot of trauma in his life. From mom passing away at a really young age. Mom being a functional alcoholic. Dad being an on-the-road salesman. Your husband having to be a surrogate parent to a special needs brother, and, and, and. And so what he has is a model of marriage, a model of relationship that is going to be

different than yours. Okay? And so I've got way more concern and concerns, a dramatic word there. I've got way more. is there for you, then that's not my worry right now. I definitely think it's worth you guys seeing a marriage counselor for a regular amount of time, like for ongoing, to work through your differing pictures of what a relationship is going to be, and you all co-create. He gets a voice. You get a voice in something together. You are not going to be able to protect this by yourself.

He's going to have to be invested in this, and he's going to have to do a lot of transition and change, and you're going to have to do a lot of compromise and transition yourself. As you all create a marriage, it's going to be different than anything y'all two have ever experienced. Now to go back to your original question, the difference between drinking

and being an alcohol addict. Those two things are different. Alcohol addict is somebody that uses alcohol as a way to escape. An addict is somebody that cannot do without. Okay? They have to have this to get through a day. They have to have this to get through an event.

They have to have this to get through a week. And ultimately, an addiction starts impairing your life. Right? It does usually start, not always, but it starts in a rather benign fashion a glass of wine after work and then a couple of days a week that glass of wine turns into two or three or i just have a beer a couple of beers after work every day and then on fridays i have four or five and then saturday morning i have a bloody mary just goes whoa and then i go ahead and start drinking saturday afternoon at 4 or 5.

And it's just – I'm just having some whiskey, just having a bourbon. That's it. And I'm going to class it up a little bit. And suddenly, I'm doing it every day. Suddenly, those one drink or two beers a day become three. They become four. And suddenly, I'm not having fun without it. I'm not sleeping without it. I'm not sleeping without it.

I'm not fill in the blank without it. And now you got a problem, right? And so my guess is your husband doesn't have a model for someone who loves him and says, hey, I've noticed you going from year one to having a couple of beers and we'd go on dates or a couple of beers and we hang go on dates or a couple of beers we hang out to we're in a pandemic now and now you're drinking every single day so the concern one is the drinking right that's fair but he's not going to have a picture for what somebody who loves him and is wanting to have a conversation with him looks like. And that's going to feel very judgy to him. It's going to feel very heavy to him. Does that make sense? Yes. And we had that conversation

over it because it was, it was, um, he, it's, he kind of, uh, takes space, processes things, and then comes out, um, a lot of times like on the positive side but it was never really like oh yeah that was right it just starts like drinking less like it starts registering with him and because it was that kind of thing it was like oh once a week and now it's like twice a week and it went from two to three and i just kind of said like have you noticed the past couple months that you've like increasingly done this and now we're here and it and it was kind of a um half response of uh that's like just the way that I was raised it almost feels like alcohol to him is this friend and this like um like it doesn't feel like it's full-on gotten to like

that addiction part it's just this coping mechanism friend of like oh this is what i go to here this is what i go to when i fish this is what i go to when i clean my gut this is what i go to because it's friday night and those kind of increased more and i did kind of say like have you noticed that and sometimes it's like I like the taste or whatever. Sometimes he just doesn't drink for a month. It just kind of varies on the situation. Right. Yes. So what you're going to have to really work hard at in this new relationship,

you're going to have to really work hard, is staying out of his head. Because the way you just described that to me is you asked him a question, he gave you an answer, and then you judged the answer because you didn't believe him. You got into his head and you are deciding why he's drinking more. You got into his head and decide he may just like the taste when he's cleaning his gun. It may just be a moment of zen and chilling out and he's having a beer while he's cleaning his gun. Or he's just having a beer with some buddies while he's going fishing um that's not weird that's not unnatural or unnormal and that doesn't mean he's got a problem right it goes back to y'all are going to have to work on not the alcohol yet you're going to have to work on your communication. And you have a picture where

alcohol is bad. I can hear it in your voice. You've got a picture where alcohol consumption is not good or right, or to use religious terms, it's not holy. It is a crutch. It's a less than. And he doesn't have that picture. And so what you guys need to work on together is reframing it. And if you don't want alcohol in your home, you've got to just be honest with him and tell him. You're probably going to have to have, like, say it when you're in therapy, right? Say it when you're with a marriage counselor and you've got a neutral third party there. But if you're always going to have this tension around it, if you're always going to have this little bit of judgment against him, leaning up against

him for this particular behavior, and I'm talking to everybody now, this doesn't just mean alcohol. This could be going to the gym. This could be wearing a mustache, dudes, or the way this particular shoes look or whatever the thing is. If you've got that little bit of judgment against somebody, I just don't like the way you smack and you chew your food. I'm not ever going to say anything. You just don't like it. Then what you're doing is you're putting a tiny splinter in your relationship. You're putting a tiny wedge between each of you.

And over time, that wedge just gets bigger and bigger and bigger. And all sorts of things fall in there that never should have been there in the first place. Right? Things of not much consequence fall into this gap and they feel so big, even though they're not, even though they're not. So the question, the difference between drinking and alcohol, being an alcohol addict, being an addict means you can't function without it, right? It impairs your everyday life. Having a few beers while you're fishing with your buddies

doesn't sound like an alcohol addiction. It sounds like you have a picture of a husband, you have a picture of a home that doesn't include it, and you and your husband need to get on the same page about what your marriage is going to look like. So thank you so, so much for that call, Kirsten. I want you to go see a counselor, a marriage therapist with your husband.

I want you to have an honest conversation together. And I want you to call me back and let me know how that conversation went. I want your husband to do some work on his childhood trauma. He had a tough road. And it sounds like he is overcoming a lot by continuing to love you. I want to hear how that conversation goes. So holler back at me. Thank you so much for the call.

Let's take one more call. Let's go to Victoria in Austin, Texas. Victoria, what's happening? Hey, John, how are you? So good. How are you? I'm doing great. Thanks so much for taking my call today.

You bet. Thanks for calling. How can I help? So my dad was diagnosed with bipolar II a few years ago. Okay. And I'm struggling with how to have a boundaries conversation with him what type of boundaries well um i guess we have kind of a a non-traditional you know relationship um he was very verbally and emotionally abusive with me growing up. Um,

and you know, I've, as I've gotten older, I've kind of noticed it more and more how kind of not normal it is. Um, and so, you know, just a lot of times I get pressure from my grandparents to spend time with him or see him, even though I can clearly feel that it's uncomfortable. Um, I mean, it gets to the point where my anxiety is so heightened that, I mean, I don't sleep for a couple of days if I interact with him at all. Um, you know, because he is bipolar, you know, that honestly, that diagnosis gave our family a lot of answers as to why he is the way that he is, you know, growing up, he was always pretty manic. He would, you know, everybody walks on eggshells around him. He's, you never know what you're going to get. For the most part, you know,

it was, it was usually going to be anger. And that was kind of just how it was. That's, that was the normal, you know, that's just kind of what I grew up around. So, you know, as if, like I said, I've gotten older, I've noticed that, you know, I I'm very aware now of the fact that I've correlated seeing him with this heightened anxiety with, you know, not sleeping, uh, really just critically overanalyzing everything. You know, when I go home to visit, it's like, okay, how do I tell him I'm here? Or do I have to tell him I'm here? It's just this whole thing. And I really just want to kind of take control of the situation and figure out how to say, you know what, you know, I'm an adult now. If I don't want to see you, I don't want to see you. And you got to be okay

with that. But I think that kind of the little girl in me still has a huge amount of fear around him and kind of that, how is he going to react? Or, you know, he's probably going to get mad. So maybe I shouldn't have this conversation, that kind of thing. All right, Victoria, I am high-fiving you from Nashville to Texas. You are an absolute rock star. Every time a child turns, again, we had this earlier with Clint, every time a child turns again, we had this earlier with Clint. Every time a child turns and stares down childhood trauma and says no more, I just want to high five you. That's not going to be easy, but I want to high five you.

So here's the deal. Yeah. Very quickly. Boundaries are for you, not for him. Right. Your boundaries are about your safety. Your boundaries are about your relationships, your joy, your ability to function in and out of every day. He doesn't get a vote.

He doesn't get an influence. And he doesn't get taken into account when you are deciding the boundaries for you and your family. Period. You are deciding the boundaries for you and your family, period. Now, bipolar two, bipolar one, any diagnostic is a context, not an excuse. Right. Okay. He had bipolar two, so be it. He doesn't get to verbally abuse you. Yeah.

He had bipolar too he doesn't get to fill your home with rage and pain and not show you connection and not show you love and traumatize you and send you off careening through a lifetime of trying to find connection, through all sorts of different ways. It's a context, not an excuse. Okay? Yeah. Well, and to throw a wrench into everything, I think that he's kind of sensed that, you know, I'm pushing further and further away.

And, you know, for a while it was like, you know, he'll call me and just seeing his name on my phone, like my stomach drops. Yeah, but listen, Victoria, Victoria, it doesn't matter what he senses. You're still letting him have power over you. Take that brick out of the backpack completely. What I was going to say is that he senses me kind of getting my distance. And so he's like, hey, guess what? Grandma and grandpa and I are going to come up to visit you. And tell them this isn't a good weekend.

You know why? Because you get to decide. You absolutely get to decide that. And it may be a really awkward trip one day when they come and you don't see them. And that will be a choice that those three adults made, not you. Right?

Okay. You no longer have to carry that burden. What you do have to do is draw really firm boundaries and be very clear about them. The hard part about drawing boundaries where you're drawing them is they tend to be kind of flexible, kind of loose, kind of back and forth, and it sends mixed messages to people. It makes it very challenging to know where your boundaries are going to truly be. So you've got to take some time and say, I will not see him other than these times. When my grandparents tell me, they give me the guilt trip and they give me, I will follow up with this statement. And I will practice letting it go. I will block his number if I have to.

I'll pull out my cell phone and delete it because I get to do that because I'm a grown up. And it might be for a few months. It might be for a season. It might be forever. But you get to draw that boundary, not him. And they call and say, guess what? We've been missing you, so we're all coming up to visit. That's when they're testing.

How hard, how strong is that fence going to hold? And that's when you say, hey, guys, I'm not going to be here or I'm not going to be available this weekend, but we're coming anyway. That's great, but I'm not going to be able to see you. Yeah, because under no circumstances do I want him in my home, especially alone. There you go, right? There you go. And that's your decision.

And it's going to be hard. Again, I can say this over and over and over. It's going to be hard. It really is, but it's a choice you get to make. And so be clear, make sure everybody knows for somebody with bipolar, something that's really helpful is a letter because they can hold it and they can go back to it. And they can go back to it in a, in a hypomanic state. They can go back for bipolar two folks. They can go back to it in a hypomanic state. For bipolar 2 folks, they can go back to it when they are low. They can go back to it when they are flying through life and functioning great.

But that way it's not a one-time conversation that gets filtered and gets waved through. It's something they can hold and see. It might be something for your grandparents. If they can have a conversation with you, if they need it in writing too, great. So be it. But it's going to be about you saying, here's my boundaries. This is the way it's going to be. I'm in control of my adult life. And here's where I'm headed with or without you. And I'm so proud of you for making that decision. Mental health diagnosis. I'll say it again. I'll say it again.

I'll say it again. Our context and not I'll say it again Are context and not an excuse And your boundaries are yours not theirs Good for you Good for you Alright so as we wrap up today's show This is One of the greatest songs ever written And this one's for real

I'll just get right to it From the 1998 Shake Your Moneymaker record. That's a classic legend record. On your way home today, stream that album, Shake Your Moneymaker, 1998, by the Black Crows. They sing in their classic, She Talks to Angels. She never mentions the word addiction in certain company. Yes, she'll tell you she's an orphan after you meet her family.

She paints her eyes as black as night now and she pulls those shades down tight. Yeah, she gives me a smile when the pain comes. The pain's gonna make everything alright. Says she talks to angels, they call her out by her name. Oh yeah! She talks to angels. Says they call her out by her name. Oh yeah. She talks to angels. Says they call her out by her name. Yeah, she talks to angels. Says they call her out by her name, Black Crows. This has been the Dr. John Deloney Show. you