The Dr. John Delony Show - How Do I Walk Away After Being the “Other Woman”?

Episode Date: April 22, 2026

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We have been seeing each other longer than the other. Well, I'm the other woman, but, you know, the main woman has been there. He told me that we could no longer be seen in public together. You don't have a special secret thing. You have a lie. Hey, what's going on? What's going on? This is John with the Dr. John Deloney's show coming to you from Nashville, Tennessee.

Talking to real people going through real challenges. Talking people from all over the planet. If you want to be on this show, I'd love to have you on. We'll change your name, we'll change your location, and we will get to the bottom of what's going on in your world and help you find the next right move. Click the link in the show notes if you want to be on the show. So go out to Tulsa, Oklahoma, and talk to, well, well, well, my Michelle.

What's up, Michelle? Good morning. How we doing? I don't know. Well, I'm talking to you, so I'm doing kind of okay. There you go. You're up and at him. You're up and at him.

Kelly says that talking to me ruins her day, but I appreciate your kindness. So what's up? Well, my question is, how do I walk away after being the other woman for probably about two years? um tell me more about it okay so or actually let me do this let me do this instead of

I want to hear with the story but when you say it sounds like you're asking me for a mechanics question but I think you're asking something way deeper because like how do you walk away you block him on everything you stop returning his calls

and you deal with the heartbreak and the grief not only of this relationship but of the fantasy of it all and you at some level violating your own core values which is I participated in long-term deception I'm going to grieve the crap out of that I'm going to be sad and I'm not going to the contact is over and then I'm going to be about finding my own new relationships my new friendships etc building a life that I want to live inside of my own skin within that's that's a mechanic side but it sounds like you're asking me a deeper question um

Well, I mean, yes, all of those things. That is, I think about those things all the time. Okay. Tell me what makes this so hard. I think if I knew the answer to that, I'd be able to do the mechanics to it. That's fair. That's fair. We have been seeing each other longer than the other.

well, I'm the other woman, but, you know, the main woman has been there. Okay, so I'll stop. I want to interrupt as we go because I want to break the story that has taken hold in you, okay? So I want you to tell me this story, and I'm an annoyingly going to jump in, okay? All right, so when it comes to longevity, doesn't matter. Doesn't matter. All right, keep going. So we started seeing each other, and it got serious pretty quickly, which kind of scared me.

So I wasn't ready for all of that. And then he decided he was going to start seeing other people, which then I didn't like that, but I just dealt with it. And then eventually he told me that there was somebody that he was, I guess, more serious with. And so at that point, we could no longer be seen in public together. And at first, I did do. the mechanics of it, right? Like, I'm not going to be part of this.

I'm not going to participate in a lie. You're dragging me into your mess. But he just won't go away ever. Okay, let me jump in. You won't let him go. Right. Right. No, you're right.

Yes. No, you're right. I, for some reason, I can't. I can't. I have contact with him every day, every single day. And I just, I've tried. I have had millions of talks with myself about why should it be doing this or that it's not fair to me. It's not fair to this other person.

You know, he's not a nice person for doing these things. Yeah. But then he'll call or he'll text or I'll see him and I'm right back in it. Like I just... So Pia Melody, who's a famous thinker and therapist and writer, she's the one where I was first introduced. I don't know her. She passed.

She's passed away. but she's who first introduced me to the idea of love addiction the idea that a person because here's the definition of addiction it is continuing to do a behavior that you know has adverse consequences it's not good for you and yet you feel powerless and continue to do it anyway over and over and over again and you know that this is not a good human being that you're with. You also know that this is a violation of the person you project yourself into the world to be. And yet.

And so what if we looked at this fantasy, this, this, this, this entity that happens to be a person and not a drink? What if we looked at this person as an addiction? Mm-hmm. Because if we change, because right now you look at him as somebody you love and somebody you know him better than even his own girlfriend knows and that y'all have this special bond. All of that is fantasy. Y'all don't have a special secret thing. You have a lie. And in it, in it, I've known him longer.

I know him deeper. I know the glance across the room and we're not supposed to be seeing each other in public. Like, it feels like you've created this secret world with this person. That's how I define intimacy, the creation of a secret world between two people. But you don't have a secret world with this person. You're on the outside of his secret world. You're a player in his game. And so, so let me ask you, like, why now?

After two years, why now? What is this addiction? Let me ask you this. Like, what is this addiction? So, you may have heard me say, this on the show, I don't beat people up for drinking or for struggling with sex addiction or pornography addiction because often those things are the actual solution to the real problem. So what is he solving for in your life? A fear of loneliness, shame, a fear of I'm this old

and this is as good as it's going to get. All men are like this, so I might as well. Like, what is he solving for in your life? All of those things. Tell me about him. All of those things. I don't trust men I don't trust them not even a little bit okay fair at all life has taught me from

a young age that they are not to be trusted fair it's a lived learned experience and I'm not gonna like your body knows that as a truth I'm not gonna fight you on that at this time right like I'll accept that you've learned over time, over experience. I can't trust them.

Okay. No. There is a fear of loneliness that this is as good as it's going to get. Not necessarily because I feel like, okay, well, there probably is part of me that feels like I'm not worthy of anything more than that. missed. For sure. Here's how I know that's true. Here's how I know that's true. You told me that you didn't want this and you didn't need this and you weren't going to be a part of this and then your exact words were, I decided to just deal with it. Mm-hmm. I did. That's those are the words of somebody who has learned over time that what you feel and what you want and what you believe

simply doesn't count for anything. So I'm going to bury it. Mm-hmm. Mm-hmm. Mm-hmm. And then there's also in that same vein, the fear of vulnerability. Right. So I don't want, it scares me to death to think about having to open up to someone new. Right? Like, this man knows me very well, and he knows everything that, he knows all of my mess, all of my trash, all of my chaos, and to have to open up to someone new, there's the fear of rejection and not being loved for who I am and what I come with.

And so it's just easier if I have part of someone. who I don't have to hide my stuff from than to think about having somebody else in my life that to get to know someone all over again. I don't want to do that. And so can I sit here with you on that? I get that. I feel that for real.

And the way you just described that is 100% addict talk. I've had that exact same conversation. trying to talk to somebody about going to rehab. And they don't want to rebuild their life over again. They don't want to meet new people. They don't want to come up with new life rhythms. They just stare at the idea of going to the gym and like changing how they interact with the world. And they're like, dude, I can just have a drink and it all stops.

And I get that. I get that. And it's these moments when you have to either A, you, you, you, you, you, have to come to the conclusion yourself that you're worth more than this. I can't talk you into it. It's the hardest thing in the world when you care about somebody who's struggling with addiction. It's the hardest thing in the world. I can't make you look in the mirror and believe you're worth more than this. That's why they say most people have to bottom out. There's no... I just don't know that I... Go ahead. I'm sorry. I just don't know that I can process any more change.

any more upheaval. But let's talk about it a different way. I don't know that you can carry the burden of this anymore. And so what I want to tell you is change is coming. This ends badly. This ends in heartbreak, in deception, this ends in ash. There's no way this works out in the end. And even if he calls you tomorrow and says,

I've had this big revelation, this big spiritual awakening, I've broke it off with the other woman. You're my person for life till death to us apart. You would still sleep with one eye open for the rest of your life. Oh, I know that. This doesn't end well.

And so hear me say, change is coming. I always tell couples like who are married, you can have the hard conversation now at your kitchen table or you can have it in a divorce attorney's office, but you're going to have the conversation. And so for you, change is coming.

want it to be on your terms towards whatever light you want to head towards or do you want it to be on somebody else's terms and pile more shame more guilt more exposure on this thing you think it's vulnerable now wait till she finds out and puts it all over everywhere wait till he decides that he's sick of you and he puts it all over everywhere this will come to light i would rather you be holding the flashlight when it does. Okay, so how do I, I mean, if we're phrasing it as an addiction, which I can understand because it's like a dopamine fix, right? But how do I?

I mean, not really, but it doesn't matter. Yeah. Okay, sorry. It's okay. It's okay. How do I, well, I mean, I think here's the thing. I think you just gave me a great insight. the tendency here is to make things more complex than necessary.

The moment... But how do I walk away? How do I quit? Go ahead. Sorry. I mean, you have to commit to simplicity. The moment you start thinking of, well, where am I going to get my dopamine and oxytocin, how's I going to interact with my serotonin, and I need to...

And how am I going to not do this and how can I not do that? All of those questions are dumping variables in. It's a way that your body feels busy without actually solving the problem. We're going to solve for simplicity here. I'm going for 30 days, for 60 days. I'm going to go stone sober. No contact. I can't do that.

You can't? I work with them. Do what? I work with them. Well, that just got more complicated. Yeah. And. Every day, yeah.

But here's the thing. if you were an alcoholic and you worked at a bar, I would tell you got to get a different job. This ends with you unemployed at some point anyway. You know that. Is he your boss? Nice. This for sure ends in one or both of y'all's unemployment.

You know that. This is a train that's left the station. If he's in a position of power over you, you can go sit down with HR. You can have that conversation. Here's the thing. any sort of major life change like this requires major life change. And you can see him for a period of time.

And you don't have to text him. You don't have to return his calls. You don't have to have private conversations in the hallway. And since this is a complicated employment issue now, I would document the heck out of those things because if and when he moves to fire you or to get you moved or demoted, you'll have these things written down

and say my boss carried on a secret sexual relationship with me for two years and I felt trapped and stuck that day's coming is what I'm trying to tell you get all the firewood in the coats and stuff you need but when you tell yourself already I can't that tells me you're not ready because the folks I meet with regularly who are struggling with addiction say I have to it's time nobody can make that nobody can make that decision for you you. Call me anytime, Michelle. Here's the crazy thing. I believe in you more than you believe in yourself right now. And in the dark moments, remember those words. I believe in you. When we come back, a man asks if stepping away from politics to protect his mental health was the right choice.

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It's just practice. And you can try Hallow free for three months only through my link. Go to hallow.com slash Deloni and sign up for free today. That's hallow.com slash Deloni for three months for free. All right, let's go out to Duluth, Minnesota and talk to Michael. Hey Michael, what's up, brother? All right. I told myself, I wasn't going to do this, but I did write something up, so I don't forget. Oh, you're good. You're good.

Over the last several years, I was really invested in politics. By that, I mean, I followed everything religiously on social media with people I talked to, things I watched, everything. It was consuming. And a big turning point for me was when Charlie Kirk was assassinated. I respected him. And after that, my best friend of 25 years posted something on Facebook saying that He deserved to be killed because my friend disagreed with him. And I sent him a message saying that was hurtful. And previously my friend had post saying that if any of his friends voted for Trump to delete him as a friend because he didn't want to be associated with those people. So I never said anything political ever, ever, ever to him.

But I did tell him that I like Charlie Kirk and that I did vote for Trump. And I'm not going to read the comments on this video. I told him how I told him how I really did do not care who my friend voted for. He's my best friend and I loved him and I was hoping and would assume he felt the same way. But unfortunately, he didn't and he sent me basically a 10-page research paper on why I'm wrong and we have not spoken since. So since then, politics has really added nothing positive to my life. I get stressed out about every single thing happening in the world. Every little election feels like the most important election ever,

and I would lose sleep over some random election in Vermont or something. And I couldn't do it anymore, so I completely erased everything, news, politics from my life. I unfollowed everybody, unfollowed podcasts, everything even remotely political. My question is, did I do the right thing? because I want to know what's going on in the world, but I don't know how I can because when somebody posts anything, even remotely political,

my heart starts racing and I just have to immediately close it or I'm laying in bed and something will come up and then I'm like, well, yes, I'm not falling asleep for another hour because it's something remotely news. Sure. Is it okay to be like oblivious or am I just covering up the real problem? Man, what a great, great, great question. and first I just want to tell you,

thank you for being thoughtful about it. Thank you. Man, there's so much here. So let me back out, and I'll use Charlie Kirk as an example, and I know even saying the name Charlie Kirk is a third rail thing, right? So have you heard of the,

I don't remember exactly how it's called, but it's essentially the three, the three-way problem with Charlie Kirk? I have not. Okay. So the three-way problem with Charlie Kirk is because of how algorithms work, depending on who you follow and like and whatever

and support in any part of your life, if you're a hunter and a fisherman and a teacher and a dance instructor and a whatever, the Charlie Kirk you get on your feed could be one of three different versions of a total person. And so, you know what, I'm going to back out of Charlie Kirk because it's just so contentious and the feelings are so heavy. I'm going to go to a comic who I have high, high respect for.

His name's Andrew Schultz. He's not everybody's cup of tea. He's pretty vulgar, but I think he's one of the most brilliant minds working today. Okay. He had, he has a podcast that I listened to and he's got, funny people on it, comedian. Some of it, I just fast forward through it because they're just just being crass and whatever. But he's had Mondami. He's had Bernie Sanders. And he's also had Trump. And he, I remember a very thoughtful conversation he had on a show talking about

when it occurred to him that depending on your algorithm, you may only know Andrew Schultz as the right-wing super-Republican maga guy high Trump supporter and depending on your other feed you may only know Andrew Schultz as the guy who had two socialist politicians on and that's all you know

and you may have a third inside of him as just this comedian who tells crass jokes a lot right or you may know him as a comedian who is a savant at cultural comedy. He goes into all sorts of other countries, other cultures, and he goes right at him with really deep layer jokes where they feel like, oh, we're seen and known, and they're getting made fun of in really, like, uncomfortable ways, and they're all in.

It's like he gets welcome to their table. You know, like, you can make fun of, I can make fun of my family, but you can't. He is a master at saying, oh, I'm one of y'all, right? And so, depending on your algorithm, that's a different version you get. And so when he discussed that, I had a ton of compassion all of a sudden for everybody. Because depending on the world that your algorithm feeds you, that's all you know of the world.

Yeah. And so if somebody has this deep-seated, like, vitriol against somebody, I've just developed a compassion for that person. because I have to believe that's all they get all day long, right, wrong, or indifferent. And it's consuming. And it becomes an addiction. It becomes consuming. It becomes almost compulsive.

Yep. And so you have recognized that in yourself and you've backed all the way out. And now you're dealing with the other part of this, which is when something consumes us, whether it's our work, our, our dating life, are a person or politics, it usually is filling a vacuum other places in our life. And so my question for you is, where do you feel dead in your own skin? Where do you feel powerless?

Where do you feel anxious? And is politics, this obsession with politics? And what you're talking about is not having an idea of what's going on in the world. you're way past that. I've been there too, brother. And so what else is happening in your life? Where you feel dead in your own skin,

where you feel powerless, where you feel like you were just a beach ball in the ocean, getting cast around? Well, so I'm married. I have three boys and another one on the way. I don't know if it's a boy or girl, but another one on the way. And I, like, I was just,

talking to my wife last night. I was in such a phone because we had a snow day yesterday because we had the first blizzard I've ever experienced. And like my, I have, and I always have had such a short temper that I just, the smallest little thing, I blow up. And then immediately I'm like, I did not need to blow up over that. What's the history of that? My dad always had that. My dad had my dad worked a lot. I mean, I saw my dad a lot, but my dad had, there was no, like, slightly annoyed version of my dad. It was when he got mad, bam, he freaked out.

Like, one example was, we had a computer that wasn't working right in the basement, and he was downstairs working on it, and we hear a scream and a smash, and he comes upstairs, and he had ripped the mouse out of the computer, peeled the buttons back, and like slammed it on the ground. And then he walked upstairs and we're like, what's wrong? And he's like, oh, no, nothing. Just the computer wasn't working. Okay.

So he goes from zero to 100 and then back down. Do me a favor. Okay. Yeah. Do you have any siblings? Yes. Older or younger or both? Two older, one younger.

Okay. I want you to close your eyes real quick while we're on the phone here in your car. I know it's kind of weird. Hopefully your students don't see you. And I want you to picture yourself at 10 years old. Fourth grade. standing in the living room of your childhood home and hearing one room over your dad coming unglued

smashing things, yelling at your mom, going after your little brother. I want you to feel that in your body, being 10 and completely powerless at the rage of this man. No 10-year-old, no 10-year-old should be scared of their dad. Okay?

I'm sorry is all bloody hell that happened to you. Your dad should have been your warm, safe place of strength and sturdiness, and he was an electric fence, and you never knew when he was going to shock you. Often men who grow up in homes with emotionally immature, emotionally chaotic, rageful fathers do one of two things. They seek power and control everywhere in their lives, and they can't have it

because that's not how the world works that's not reality and they recreate the story of their childhood with short tempers with anger with demands with a need to feel ahead of the curve

you had to see you had to learn how to look around learn how to look around corners because otherwise you can get your head knocked off as a 10 year old of course you're doing that as an adult or men they disappear from the world.

They just mopped out. And that's not you. You're a man of character and integrity. And so you've got responsibilities and you love deeply. And also you have a very clear sense of the world needs to be a certain way. You're trying to force stability into an unstable world. You've been having to do this since you're a kid. And politics is one of the few places where we are reduced to how small we actually are.

Because we get one vote every four years. get one vote every two years. We get votes in local elections. And we realize that our influence is actually greater, not with what we thumbs up or thumbs down or long posts or 10 page diatrives to our closest friends, but in how we treat our neighbors, how we open our doors, how we're hospitable, how we do the next right thing day in and day out over a long period of time. And when we live like that, we're forced to deal with the nuclear reactor in the middle of our chest. Do you know what I'm saying? Yep. So, and that was part of my frustration because I, like, you are really helpless. You get all worked up over this random election, but there's literally

nothing I could do about it. And, you know, I would maybe comment on some things here and there and whatnot and try to get people to if they were on the fence to vote one way or the other, but then I'm like, it's not worth it. I just, it was causing so much stress and there was nothing good coming out of it. Right. So my question for you is, where is there good? In the world or in my life? Where do you have purpose? Where do you put good in the world? At home and at work.

How do you do it at work? Treat kids like human beings. That's not enough. Go deeper than that. Try to make it very clear to, whether they pass my class or not, I want every single kid to know that I truly care about them. I have a couple kids with Fs right now, but they come and talk to me,

they come and tell me what's going on in their lives. So I want every single kid that walks into my room to know that I truly want what is best for them. Okay. And common from young people who grew up in tremendous. of traumatic households is this powerful internal drive that nobody else will ever feel like I felt. The challenge with that is,

is if you don't start with yourself, that becomes exhausting and you burn out over time. Yep. Trying to give what you don't have is just the waiter who continues to fill up people's waterglass, but never goes back to the source to refill their pitcher. And so here's a couple of things. Number one, I think you did the right thing.

detoxing from politics. I feel better. And that is different than burying your head in the sand. And you know the difference. Right. I've learned I can't get into that ecosystem because they're too good. Yep.

The neuroscientists who partner with the techno wizards who partner with media companies are simply better than my brain chemistry. I'm at peace with that. Their fonts, their volumes, they're breaking news stories, their slants, they're just better than me. And they're not selling me information. They're selling me a drug. Yeah.

And at the end of the day, media companies, all of them, are publicly traded companies. Which means they have one job on planet earth. That is to sell ads to get clicks, not to give you information. they would be failing their shareholders if they did not do whatever they could to make you feel like if you don't see the next thing your life's in danger and so when we back out and say

what they're giving me is not information they're giving me heroin they're giving me cocaine then that makes it easier to walk away and then I have to do the hard work of finding reliable sources where I can get some daily dose of what's going on Yeah.

And that I can get on with my life. And getting on with my life does not mean bearing my head in the sand. It means it asking, where can I show up for myself? Where can I be in service to myself so that I'm well and I'm whole? And by the way, brother, I've spent some time with a trauma therapist, and I think that's where you need to go. You don't understand the relief and the peace on the other side when you disconnect that nuclear reactor in your chest.

when you recognize I wasn't safe then, but I'm safe now. I'm telling you right now, brother, your kids will feel it, your wife will feel it, your students will feel it. You can tell everybody all day long, I love you, and I'm your safe place, but, man, it all changes when they feel you're their safe place. That's exactly what I told my wife last night, because, like, I love my boys. My boys are my world, and she was like, well, do you, you know, hug them and tell them that you love them. And I'm like every single day. When I get home before I leave, I give them a hug. I tell them I love them.

I tell them I'm proud that they're my kids. But then the second they do something bad, then, you know, I raise my voice and yell at them. So like I can tell them that all I want, but are my actions showing this? Or put it another way. And this is going to be hard to hear, okay? I've had to hear this too. So this is the pot with the kettle here. When their life gets bananas or stressed.

Do they come running for you? No. Okay. That's the measure of, do I have a safe attachment with my boys? Or do they have an anxious attachment? I can tell they kind of get nervous whenever they have to come to. Or like, you know, to tell me, hey, my brother did this and they come and tell me, I could tell that they're nervous. Yeah.

And you've been there before as a kid, and then you feel guilty and she's guilty and she's, shame that your boys are feeling that. Yep. And then it works up and it kicks up the nuclear reactor and the whole thing starts over again. Yep. This is about you going and sitting with a professional trauma therapist and saying, I'm going to let this, I'm going to set my, I'm not giving my father and my childhood nervous system.

I'm not carrying those cinder blocks around with me anymore. I need to set those down. And I'm telling you as a guy who's on the other side of that kind of healing, bro, everything changes. Okay. My heart rate, my resting heart rate dropped about 10 beats a minute. Okay. When I tell you, it changes at your nervous system level, how your metabolic systems operate. It changes you. But you got to go do that work. Thanks for the call, man. Your honesty and courage is going to help a lot of folks here. Thanks for the conversation, my man. I would be honored if six months from now, nine months from now, after you spend some time with a trauma therapist,

I would love to hear about how you're feeling. My guess is your kids, your sons are not going to be able to stay off of their dad. You're going to become a human jungle gym. You're going to be their safe place. And that's when we start changing our family tree. We come back. A woman asks why her doctor recommended medication in rehab when she doesn't see herself as an alcoholic.

We'll be right back. Winter is over. The sun is coming out earlier and staying out longer, and it's awesome. And that also means it's time to rotate the closet. Poncho flannels and dinnums are going in the back, and poncho originals and ultralights are moving forward. No matter what time of year it is,

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All right, let's go to Portland, Oregon and talk to Jenna. Hey, Jenna, what's up? Well, a few weeks back, I heard you talking to a caller about microdosing GLP-1s and how they cut back in the noise in your head. But you had attributed it specifically to alcohol, and I'd never heard that before. And I scheduled the appointment with my doctor, and he immediately did an audit test, and I came back as high risk. Rather than even discussing GLP ones with me, he prescribed antibuse and alcohol counseling.

because he said that they don't prescribe GLP ones through our insurance but at the same time it just like sent me into panic when that was the option that he offered. The idea of just putting alcohol out completely and still having the voice in the back of my head was terrifying. Okay.

So two important things here, okay? Number one, I want to make this so, so clear. I am in no way, shape, form, or fashion, and medical doctor. his opinion, Trump's mind, a thousand to one. Okay? Number two, what you just described, the way you just described your relationship with alcohol

tells me you have a problem. Do you have a problem? I mean, I have a beer every day, sometimes two, sometimes three. I don't ever drink to get drunk. I don't like being drunk. I might accidentally get drunk once a year.

But I do, like, at the end of the day, it's my signal that the day is over. Okay. What is the thought of coming up with other signals? Scare you? Well, I started working out a couple months ago, and I work out four days a week, and I was like,

this is going to take that need to have that beer at the end of the day away. And now when I come home from the gym, I have that one beer. But I have that one beer instead of two beers. Okay. So why'd you go? to the doctor?

When I heard that call, the reason I've never been able to stop drinking, I feel like, is because the voices, when I skip that drink, are so loud. Or when I buy less alcohol so that I don't have a beer at the end of the day. I'm counting the beers to make sure I have enough to get through the week, and I don't have to ask my husband if it's cool if I go get more. So the idea of not having that constant chatter in my brain, having that turned down, I felt like it would be easier to put space between me and alcohol. Okay.

But the idea of like picking in abuse and not being able to drink at all, that's so scary. Yeah. But your challenge right now, this is going to sound crazy, is not with alcohol. Your challenge is heading straight into those voices. because two things are happening. One of two things is happening. Probably a mixture of both, but it's easy to just bifurcated it.

Those voices may be right. Your relationships may be a mess. You may be just running on a treadmill in your life and don't have any purpose. You may be unhealthy. You may need to really deal with some old childhood traumas. Your marriage may be way unsafe. Check, check, check, check.

Okay. So here's the thing. those voices are right and alcohol shuts them off the last thing you want to do is immediately shut off your body's alarm systems because you're going to take the batteries out of the alarm but your house is going to burn down around you and so i i'm i'm i'm i'm 100% with your doctor here i don't know the like antibuse has a whole bunch of by like for those of you don't know an abuse is it's a medication you take that when you drink alcohol, you become violently ill. It makes you, it makes

the drink so awful for your body that you stay away because it's like, it's, I mean, it's like touching a, like a hot stove. I mean, it's just makes you feel awful. But also a side effect. So I, I can't speak to

anything around that, that, that drug, but I can tell you you need to go, you need to go to a meeting. And you probably need to go see a professional therapist ASAP. Okay. Because your body's trying to get your attention.

And you sound smart enough, and I don't mean that like an intelligence-wise, but you sound like a very thoughtful person. And so I want to say back to you what you told me, okay? The thought of not having beer in my fridge scares me. I count alcohol. I count beers so that I know, right? Yeah. That tells me that alcohol is serving a very important role in your life, and I want to get to the bottom of what it's trying to protect me from.

Or let me put another way. The changes you're avoiding, they're going to happen. If you're in an unsafe marriage, if your body is still trying to solve from historic trauma, if your job isn't safe, if you're operating life with no purpose, all of that ends up on the table. It just might be an attorney's office. It might be a rehab center where you're forced to go. Or it can be you choose to take your suitcase into a counselor's office, into an AA meeting, and dump it out yourself. But it's coming out. I mean, I did outpatient when I was a teenager because I got caught with drugs. Okay.

That's different. So I kind of felt like, you know, this has always been something I've had control over. And I didn't like meetings when I was younger. Of course you didn't. You were made to go. And by the way, drugs and alcohol were solving for something when you were a teenager. Yeah. Was home chaotic, unsafe?

My mom was bipolar manic depressive. There you go. Things got really rough when I was like 13. Yeah, so they sent you to a rehab. They kicked the crutch out from under you. Right? And then they dropped you right back in the middle of the football game and said, keep playing. That's cruel to a teenager.

I'm not saying you let teenagers continue to use drugs. and drink, it's not what I'm saying, but you have to change the environment that makes drugs and alcohol an important tool and resource. Of course, meetings were miserable right there, like when you were a kid. You were forced to go. I didn't feel like I was one of them. I didn't feel like I was there for the same reason they were, and they weren't interested in being there, and I used drugs a couple times, got caught, and stopped. That's not where we are anymore. No.

How old are you? I'm 40. Or I will be. How much of this are you're terrified of what it's actually going to mean about your marriage and about potentially being lonely and about potentially having to go recreate yourself at 41 years old? I don't know. I'm lonely right now, but I think maybe that's part of what I'm scared of is if I quit drinking, I have to reintroduce myself to my husband. You have to reintroduce yourself to you. And sometimes we're lonely because other people don't see and know us,

but sometimes we're lonely because we don't let other people see and know us. And sometimes it's both. I need you to metabolize what I'm about to say, okay? Okay. You're worth a better life than this. You're worth having peace when you walk in your front door. You're worth your husband and your home being the safest place on the planet for you. You're worth coming home and laughing your butt off.

Not having to hide from your emotions in your day. You're worth having REM sleep, which alcohol does. destroy us, you're worth joy. And you haven't had that in a long, long, long time. How do any of the fun stuff we used to do? We have kids. I know, but you don't think you're worth being fun with. That's part of it. Work two jobs and driving the kids to all their activities and put the workout in there and isn't time for fun. That little beer at the end of the night, it's my little bit of fun. And if you've created a world, that's the only moment you have, I get it.

And I also get that being in a season where you've got little kids and you've got people run around and resources are tight and you and your spouse aren't connected, y'all are living separate lives in the same house. Right? I get it. I totally get it. I just want to tell you, I've sat with, I mean, I've talked to thousands of couples who have cleared the deck and said the marriage we had is over.

Let's rebuild a new one. I can't tell you the number of people who have come out after rehab or stay in an inpatient rehab or who've started going to meetings who get their life completely back. I can't tell you the number of people I've talked to who have said, hey, hey, I'm not going to let my kids'bysiness dictate my marriage and my home. Me and my spouse, me and my partner are going to be the anchor of this place. And y'all are going to orbit around us, not the other way around. And it changes everything. The responsibility stay the same. but the ethos in the house changes.

It's like going to a job where the boss is just miserable and they suck. That same work, the same job can be a place of awesomeness if your boss rules and your coworkers are awesome, right? Yeah. But I want you to hear me say you can't see through any of that because right now you're looking through a cloud. You're looking through a glass darkly. And that's when you've got to trust people around you to say,

hey, it's time to go see somebody. I don't think you need to turn the voices down right now. I think you need to go listen to them. And right now, listening to them alone, that's a tall ask. They're so loud. I know. I know. And they have to be because you keep drowning them out.

Are you worth it? Yeah. Okay. Today's day one. Today's day one. Here's your homework assignment. I want you to, before the day is over, I want you have an appointment with an in-person therapist. Okay.

And my preference for you would be if you found a trauma-informed therapist and give it two or three sessions. And if you don't feel safe enough to be completely honest about your childhood, about your marriage, about your relationship with yourself and your kids, then go find somebody else, okay? I'm generally an overshare. So that shouldn't be a problem. Yeah, but you overshare to protect that sacred six inches of space. Push them away before they can push me away. Yeah, overshering is a mechanism. It's not honesty. You can overshare information and never share how you feel about something. Yeah.

That's what I mean about going and being honest. And tell your husband, I'm going to start making some significant changes, and I hope you'll come with me. And be honest with him and say, the story I'm making up in my head is, you're not going to like me. He's the only person who's ever not asked me to stop drinking. Okay. It does it. My kids have. Okay.

So today's day one. and by the end of the day I want you to have found a meeting if you're a real gangster you'll go to night your husband can do bedtimes but you'll go to night or you're going to go early in the morning

you start your day early find an early meeting in the morning we're going to start going and it might 12 steps may not be your thing over the long period of time but it's not like it is in the movies can be a very warm inviting kind place where people who are doing life

just as busy and fast as you are coming in and say I'm powerless over this one and I'm worth more. Your doctor's right. And for anybody listening to this podcast, if I say something that's different from your doctor, maybe get a second opinion, but listen to your physician who knows you,

your blood panels, knows medication, they are licensed, they are board certified, listen to them over me. I'm a podcaster, but do head towards healing. I'm proud of you,

Janet. They won. On your 30 days, I want you to call back. and we're going to celebrate you. Might even see if I can make a 30-day chip, or a 60-day chip. That'd be awesome.

I'm really grateful for you. Game on. We'll be right back. As you can imagine, my house is filled with all kinds of rad stuff, all my hunting gear, all of my music stuff, my kids' art, my wife's art.

We have so much cool stuff in our house. But I would say not the coolest, but almost the coolest stuff we have in our house is cozy earth gear. Our house is packed with cozy earth gear. Sheets, pajamas, blankets, socks, towels, all of it. Why is our house packed with it? Because it's amazing. I got this cozy earth comforter recently and it's big, but somehow it's not like hot and heavy. It's like a cloud. It helps regulate temperature so I stay comfortable throughout the night and I sleep better and I wake up feeling restored. It's just so comfortable. And I got cozy earth

essential socks, listen, these socks are amazing. They come in four links and they're all super comfortable. Cozy Earth also offers a hundred-night sleep trial on all betting and a 10-year warranty on everything else, so there's no risk filling your house with Cozy Earth gear. Go to cozyearth.com slash Deloni and use code Deloni and you'll save up to 20% off your entire order. That's cozyearth.com, use code Deloney. And if you get a post-purch survey, Tell him you heard about cozy earth right here on the show. You're going to love cozy earth taking over your home. All right, we're back.

All right, so I finished. All right, this is for Ben, who's running the board on the show. All right, Ben, listen. I was late to the game by about a decade. I started, my son and I started Stranger Things season one. About a month and a half or two months ago, we just finished season five. I am in a deep state of mourning in just sadness. I felt like if you want to see my childhood,

minus the upside down, that's my childhood. Riding around on bikes, causing problems, walkie-talkies, adventures, forts in the woods, fighting, like all of it. That was it. The one thing that was a part of my childhood was Dungeons and Dragons. Shame.

Or, okay, I was kissing girls, but whatever. All right, so I need you to teach, me as concisely as you can, but as passionately as you can. What is a campaign? What does that mean? Because it looks like in the show, like each person makes up their own story, but I don't know how much of the story they make up and then it's just left a chance because of dice rolls and stuff, or do they have to have the ending already like complete? Like, how does it work? What's a campaign? I find that, so a campaign, I mean, the simplest way to put it is it is a story. It's not everyone.

telling their own story. It's the DM, the dungeon master, who's kind of the storyteller who has kind of their own, you know, story arc that they're going to go through. But like you said, like the dice, the decisions the player makes, like they change the story. So it's very rare that an ending of a campaign, which is just multiple sessions of the same plot line, right? We're going to one town, we're going to fight a dragon. The next session we all get together, we're going to fight this other thing because we killed the dragon now this thing is after us so it progresses but how do we know how do we know when the other dragon pops up is that the storyteller or is that the DM or is it like a card gets turned over and you're like

oh there's another dragon it depends on how you run it but like some people do pen and paper some people have maps battle maps right where you can see your your characters on a map and you can say oh the DM will say hey you you see something rustling in the bushes around this area. If you're doing just pen and paper in your brain, you can just say, I walk over there,

what do I find? And then the DM will walk you through what that is, a creature approaches. How do you keep the DM from just making it up as they go? The DM is making it up as they go.

It's literally, I mean, sometimes they'll have, like, plans. They'll say, like, the DM had kind of this, like, outline that they brought to the session.

Uh-huh. And then so they know that you're going to encounter a dragon. And then sometimes, It just goes off the rails because players are like, hey, I want to go left. And the DM is like, well, I thought you were going to go right. But I'm going to make up something on the spot because you chose to go left instead of what I was planning. My favorite thing about this discussion is I just watch Kelly die in real time.

Y'all, it's a fun game. I'm telling you. Look, I'm married. I turned out great. I played D&D, y'all. It's a fun game. I've got a job. I've got a family.

Yeah. But listen, it's just, it's oral storytelling, right? It's the oldest form of entertainment. That's what D&D is. And it sounds like people get to participate in the story, like, choose your own adventure in real time. Yes. Yep. Yeah, there's an element of improv.

Oh, then the other techno nerd pops in. And Kelly, you're sandwiched. I know. I'm having a great time with this. Okay, here's a thing. I've spent my entire life rolling my eyes but the stranger things kids

they did peak my interest so I'm going to commit to a campaign at some point this year you got invite me over dude I'll DM it let's go I can't call you a dungeon master I'm not there yet I can't baby steps

baby steps but thank you for sharing your expertise and your wisdom any time John Kelly I saw you wheeled in a margarita machine We're going to need to crank that sucker up Because I don't know what just happened

Love you guys, bye