The Dr. John Delony Show - Survivor's Guilt, an Obese Father, & an Alcoholic Narcissist

Episode Date: January 13, 2021

The Dr. John Delony Show is a caller-driven show that offers real people a chance to be heard as they struggle with relationship issues and mental health challenges. John will give you practical advice on how to connect with people, how to take the next right step when you feel frozen, and how to cut through the depression and anxiety that can feel so overwhelming. You are not alone in this battle. You are worth being well—and it starts by focusing on what you can control. Let us know what’s going on by leaving a voicemail at 844.693.3291 or visiting johndelony.com/show. We want to talk to YOU! Show Notes for this Episode 5:38: My fiancé's brother drowned last year and we found him. I now have problems with separation anxiety. 17:57: Teaching Segment: Survivor's Guilt 20:53: I am worried about my obese father. How can I get him to take his health seriously? 29:12: My dad is an alcoholic narcissist. Should I keep pursuing my relationship with him? 40:56: Lyrics of the Day: "The Thrill Is Gone" - B.B. King tags: trauma/PTSD, family, grief, family, fitness/physical health, family, relationships, reconciliation/forgiveness 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 young woman who's struggling with anxiety after experiencing a deep trauma with a close family friend. We're going to talk to a young man who's worried about his dad and his dad's obesity and how he might help his father become more healthy. And we're going to talk to a young woman whose father's an alcoholic and who didn't show up and continues to hurt her and her sisters. Stay tuned. Hey, what is up? I'm John and this is the Dr. John Deloney Show. We're taking your calls about your life, your relationships, your relational IQ, how you interact with

other human beings, including yourself, sometimes especially yourself. We're talking about your mental health, your families, right? I want to help you rethink, re-examine, and re-imagine just being a person, right? And how to take the next crooked, wobbly, bold step into whatever it is you're doing, whatever it is you're trying to reconnect to or heal. We may talk about integrity, loss when things fall apart, infidelity. We may talk about how to love again. What do we owe people who've hurt us in the past?

And we may talk about this. We're going to talk about the annoying things segment here. So the inside joke here is that I'm not annoyed by much of anything. A few things drive me crazy, but most of the time I'm a pretty laid back guy. I just don't get worried about a lot of stuff. And so I ask people around the office, I ask my family members, my buddies,

hey, what's something that really annoys you? And it ends up in this spot on the show. Today I asked the producer of the show, James Childs, hey, I need something for the annoying segment. He said, emoji gif people via text, people who only speak in emojis or gifs. I was like, yeah, that's awesome. Until I realized that's me. Well played, James Childs. Well played. So I like to respond. So it kind of started this way. Where are you? And you could usually tell if someone was over the age of 60 and texting,

because they would use the letter R and the letter U, right? Or you knew they were 11 and they just tried to, it would just say W-R-U, right? And then it moved to, hey, I'm going to give you a long, long text about my relationships and how my house caught on fire and my dad passed away and someone would just reply K, right? Idiots. They would just reply, K. And that moved to like a thumbs up or a fist bump. And evidently, Apple is heavily invested in us reclaiming hieroglyphics because now there's just a whole generation of human who just speaks in pictures. Right?

And then we discovered the GIFs. Every movie ever made is now a joke and it's awesome and that's how i communicate with everybody and what i've learned over the last few years is that people have different relationships with movies than i do and they think those mean different things than i mean so here's the deal james well done it's annoying when we speak in GIFs And text message emojis I get it Well played And seen

Unbelievable Making fun of me on my own show But here's what I am going to commit to I'm going to commit to texting less in 2021 About four years ago I bought a flip phone And I was like, I'm not texting anymore, bro I'm going old school

We're just going to be humans again And then I realized I just, nobody talked to me. They would send these crazy text messages and I would get it. And I would be like, oh, wow. A, R, right? And it took like eight hours to do a text, right? It was ridiculous. And then I would try to call them. And then my friends who I've known and loved for years would say, hey, why are you calling me? Why don't you just text me back, idiot? And so I had to go back to the old phone. So I'm not going to pretend like I'm getting a caveman club and like a leopard skin loincloth that I'm going to attack through. I'm not going to do that, but I am going to commit to texting less. I'm going to call people more. So in addition to not eating sugar, this is going to be 2021, man. Let's start calling each other. Let's just be humans again.

But the one caveat is if you have an awesome gift, go ahead and send that anyway. So that's a long intro to say I'm here for whatever's going on in your world. And I'm actually going to use words when you call, words when you shoot me an email. So whatever's going on in your heart, in your home, or your head, give me a call at 1-844-693-3291. That's 1-844-693-3291. Or go to johndeloney.com slash show. Fill out the form. It goes directly to Kelly Daniel and her team, and they will get in contact with you to have you on the show. All right, let's go straight to the calls today. First, I want to wave to everybody. We now moved up to the studio. We have a live studio audience. Drum roll, please. I'm counting them. Four. Four people out there. I'm telling you guys, this is, we're raising the roof up here.

My mom plus four new listeners. This is big. Big. And the camera just panned on y'all, so if any of y'all are on witness protection, you're probably going to want to run. All right, let's go to Anna in Columbia, South Carolina. Anna, what is up? Hey, Don. How are you? I'm so good. How are you?

I'm okay. All right, let's get into it. How can I help? Okay, so about a year and a half ago, my fiance's brother drowned in the pool in the backyard. Oh my gosh. Was it in your home? It's where I live, yes. Okay. All right. I'm so sorry to hear that. So tell me about it. So ever since then, I've kind of had like this anxiety or this, I guess, PTSD

with people being alone in their house. Yeah, absolutely. So anytime anybody's like by themselves, I have to like, if I hear a loud noise, I go check on them, try to make sure like they're not passed out or anything.

Right. And it's just like, lately it's just been kind of bothering me cause I'm about to leave for school. So I don't know how to deal with it with me not even being at home. Yeah. So let's back out a little bit. So what happened with your, um, your fiance's brother? Um, so he was home for the summer and, um, he swam every day and we don't know what happened

it's kind of he had epilepsy okay and um he took medication for it but no one knew he was in the pool and we weren't home the minute we got home we went in the backyard and found him. Ah, okay. So I was there for that. Yeah. I had CPR on him. Yeah. So you have probably been told this, but I want to reiterate it. You experienced the deepest trauma that a person can experience outside of direct parental abuse. And I want to make sure you're honoring

how hard of the thing that you, I want you to make sure that not only, I know you're feeling it, but intellectually, I want you to know that what you experience, people are not supposed to experience. They're not supposed to go through that. And that's hard.

And every system in your body knows now that that can happen. And you now have parts of your brain that are scanning every part of your environment to make sure that you are in control and that you make sure that nobody ever goes through that again. And especially you never go through that again. Right? Yes, sir. So how is your fiance doing? So my fiance, he's a high-functioning autistic. Okay. So he's pretty quiet about his emotions.

He obviously talks to me about it and stuff. And more for him, it's just that was the worst day of his life. Right. And it's hard because I try to bottle mine up to help him. Yeah. And when you do that, Anna, you're drowning both of you. Right? You're experiencing this again.

It feels like you're trying to help him by bottling yours up, but it compounds the problem. And I'm asking this because I care about you. Being engaged or being connected to a high-functioning autistic, in many ways, have you been experiencing the grief of this alone? No, he's actually, shockingly, he's really good at communication. That's one thing he's worked very hard on to be good at it. But he can be great at communication, but is he good at connection? Does he have those skills and abilities? Yeah, I would would say he does he does ask me how i'm doing i

mean the week after every night he asked me how i was beautiful and even to this day he asked me are you okay you know very cool sometimes he'll tell me obviously grief has comes in waves and some nights are really bad for him and some days you know yeah they seem pretty normal so at the end of the day this is exhausting and debilitating huh yeah yeah how did you grieve this loss um it all kind of the thing is it was so sudden for me because i was i'm not like you know an outsider but i I'm the fiance. So a lot of it, I was trying not to be too in the way of it because I felt like even though I was directly connected to it, I'm not directly related to them. Yeah, but there's the familial loss, right? There's the family loss.

And you're an outsider to that. But I'm asking you, how did you grieve with coming home, opening up a gate and seeing somebody that you knew who wasn't breathing anymore, the process of CPR, the process of seeing somebody loaded up into an ambulance, taken to the hospital, the pronouncement, all of those things, I get that there's a family. I'm asking you, how did you personally grieve? And what I'm hearing you say is you didn't. Is that right? Pretty much. Okay. Until you process this grief, it's going to continue to haunt you.

It's going to continue to hold you down. And by bottling it up, going back to what I said earlier, you are reenacting this over and over in an effort to make sure it never ever happens again. And so, you have to decide, I want to process this trauma. And if that is with your boyfriend, great. If that's with a professional, great. If that's with a group of girlfriends that can hear you and you can be vulnerable with, great. If you have family that's close to you and connected, great. But you have to make the decision that I'm going to process this grief.

And it's not going to be a one-time event. It's going to be over a series of days and weeks and probably years. It will probably be a long time before you walk into a backyard and see a pool and your heart doesn't drop into your stomach. Okay? And part of the grief, part of recognizing that grief, having gone through that process, is understanding this is coming and that way it doesn't shock you. It doesn't knock you down. It just hits your chest.

You're able to take that deep breath and then reset your thoughts, right? So, here's a couple of things I want you to do. The first thing is, if you haven't already, and you've probably heard me say this a hundred times and I'm going to say it a thousand times more. I want you to write him a letter because there's a part of me that guesses, I'm just going to take some guesses here, that you think I probably should have been there. If I had just been home, if one of us hadn't gone out, if one of us had just been there, then fill in the blank. Yeah, I guess the hardest part of that is his dad was working from home right and he didn't even know didn't even know it's just like and we didn't and we didn't

know and we were eating breakfast before he went outside it just exactly and so you start trying to reverse engineer what happened as a way of replaying and trying to recontrol a situation and your brain goes on a loop and it never hops off that loop until you stop and grieve this. Grief is the way you stop the loop and you just put a period at the end of the sentence and say, oh my good God almighty, this happened. Right? And when you do that, there will be waves of sadness. There will be waves of relief. There will be waves of relief. There will be waves of guilt. There will be all of that feeling and all that emotion that you will finally let your body cycle through. And you've got some extraordinary biological capacities to work through that stuff.

And if you've got great people in your life, they're going to help you process this as well, right? Because people are your emergency fund for life. You cannot process trauma by yourself, right? But you'll work through this. And then have you heard me talk about David Kessler's purple elephant yet? I think I have before. Okay. I want to do it one more time with you. And then I'm going to do it a thousand times more, right? As long as this podcast lasts. I want you to close your eyes and picture a red horse in your driveway. Okay?

Okay. You got it? Yeah. Then I want you to picture a yellow hat on that red horse. Okay. All right? And I want you to picture that red horse just looked at you right in the eyes, and he's kind of smiling weird. Okay? You got that in your head? Yeah. All right, now open your eyes. And I want you to picture that red horse just looked at you right in the eyes, and he's kind of smiling weird. Okay?

You got that in your head? Yeah. All right, now open your eyes. You just proved to everyone that you can control your thoughts. Okay? Here's why that's important. You are going to be walking along the sidewalk somewhere, and you're going to see somebody that looks like your fiancé's brother. And your heart will sound every alarm it has.

Your heart will start racing. Your stomach will get that warm feeling, right? You'll get a headache. Your fingers will go cold. And then you have an instant moment to decide, am I going to focus on that image I have in my head of doing CPR? Or am I going to focus on that image of the hilarious swimmer that used to come in and poke fun at me and his brother? You get to decide which one of those images you meditate on. Are you going to meditate and you're going to think about and let dwell in your heart, in your head, the picture of him that's in your mind of him in the pool and he's not moving and you instantly know something's not right? Or are you going to

say, nope, nope. And you're going to put a picture of him in your mind when he was doing something silly, when he was being goofy, making a joke. You get to, over time, decide whether I'm going to meditate on one or I'm going to just be run over by the other. And here's what really sucks about this. There's a part when you start to forget. There's a part when you start to not have these things in your mind and your brain will feel like you're losing control of the situation as though you had it in the first place and you don't. And grief is that awful, terrible, beautiful process of recognizing there was going to be something and it is no more. I wanted something to look like this and it doesn't, which ultimately means I have very, very little control. And what I promise you is if you will surround yourself by people who care about you and that you can be vulnerable with, that you can call on days when

this is just really heavy. If you'll continue to lean into who, it sounds like you have an awesome fiance, right? Who is working his butt off to learn some skills. So to everyone who's a high functioning autistic out there, who's putting in the work, and those of you who know what I mean when I say that, you're heroes because the work you're putting in every day is awesome. And it sounds like you've got a stud of a fiance. Yeah, I do. And the more you lean into him and the more you sit down, write this young man who passed away a letter telling him, I'm sorry that I wasn't there.

I'm sorry that you died alone. I'm sorry that nobody was there until too late. And I want you to know that we loved you. We still think about you. Every year, we still remember the joy that you brought us. We still remember the laughter you brought us. And then we're going to figure out ways to make meaning into the future. Right?

Once you begin to let your body release that pain that it's holding onto, you're going to find yourself walking 100 pounds lighter. And you're going to slowly start to regain control over your physiology. And this is hard and it's not fun, but I promise it's less hard and not as bad as continuing to hang on so tight to every situation. As you mentioned, every person who goes outside, every person who's by themselves. Where are they? Who are they? Hey, have you seen so-and-so? Yeah, it's been like 30 seconds. They just ran to the bathroom. I need to go see them. I've got to control it all because you can't,

Anna. You can't. And then some people who experience this go through, it's a colloquial term, but it's survivor guilt right it's this it's this guilt that you feel why them two of the most damning words you can you can ask in the english language why them and not me right what am i worth that why am i still here why did somebody have to pass away in that way why am i here so here's did somebody have to pass away in that way? Why am I here? So here's some folks who might struggle with survivor's guilt. War veterans, first responders, 9-11 survivors, cancer survivors, transplant recipients, natural disasters, parents who outlived their child, any number of people who experience somebody else's trauma and they go

home in one piece, They go home whole. And they just have that dark night of the soul where they ask, why me? Right? And it can result in flashbacks, anxiety, depression, obsessive thoughts, those looping thoughts I was talking about. And anxiety has this weird way of making its way through the body. So does depression. And it can turn into irritability. It can turn into anger. It can turn into outbursts, right? It can turn into headaches, problems sleeping, all of these things. But here's what survivor's guilt is. It's comparison, right? It's comparison. Why them and not me, right? And comparison helps nothing. It solves nothing, right? It doesn't accomplish anything. It doesn't bring them back. It just seeks to slow you down as a way of beating yourself up, as a way of not being able to control tomorrow. And the reality is we don't, right? You're not

helping those you lost if you're choosing to poison yourself by hanging on to guilt. And I know that sounds harsh, but the reality is at some point we make identity, we make our identities by hanging on to that guilt. You got to let it go. And over time, like I said, you'll find meaning, you'll find a way to give, right? And you may need to work through trauma with a therapist. The rule for trauma therapy was always, or for trauma, and we would show up to trauma scenes was most people, most of the time don't need to go through a lot of extensive counseling. They need close relationships. Most people, most of the time don't need to go through,

go see a psychiatrist. They don't need to go through any wild programs that take years and years. They don't need all that. But those that do really need them. I did. I was someone who needed to sit down and process stuff with people on a regular basis. Most people don't, right? So wherever you find yourself, Ana, I want you to tell you I love you and I'm proud of you. I want you to remind you to let this go. Make a decision that this year, 2021, you're going to begin to process this trauma and you're going to find people around you and you're going to write that guy a letter and tell him that you miss him and you love him and you're going to let him go. So thank you so much for that call. Let's go to John in Toledo, Ohio. John, what's up, brother? How can I help?

Hey, Dr. D, thanks for taking my call. You got it, man. What's going on? Alrighty. I'm just calling to talk. I'm just worried about my dad. I'm worried mainly about his physical and mental health. Okay. Starting with physical, he's obese, probably pushing 400 pounds. We just got told he has high blood pressure. And over the last few years, he's kept trying to go on diets, and he does well for about a month or two, and then we just can't get him to follow along. So I just want to get your advice on how maybe to kind of push him along

and, I don't know, inspire him or get him to follow through and lose some weight because I'm 22, and I'm kind of worrying at this point. I really want my kids to have grandkids, to have a grandfather one day. Yeah, that's a beautiful why, man. Good for you. Well, first, I want to shout you out, dude. I appreciate you loving your old man. And to all the dads out there that are eating or drinking or lonely-ing or depressing or

anxiety-ing themselves into tighter and tighter circles of loneliness, I want you to know that whether they can say it or not in the right way, your sons and daughters love you and they miss you and they want you around for their kids. They want you to be a granddad. So John, thank you for verbalizing that in a way that so many people your age just don't know how to do, so um i've got i've got two quick answers for you before i just pop off and give those to you tell me about your dad um where did he come from what his childhood looked like um how he explained that he had a really fun and exciting childhood he had a lot of friends growing up and um now we've kind of moved around a little bit.

And I guess he really doesn't have many friends. He has friends, but he doesn't go to see them. How's his marriage? Yeah. Is he still married? Oh, yeah. Yeah. Him and my mom have a great marriage.

So what does your mom say about his weight? She tries to push him a lot. And we all talk to him about it and he says yeah i'm gonna get on it and then he does it and he'll do great i mean like uh in the past two or three months he lost probably 30 or 40 pounds and then and then it was just like it just stalled out and he's back to old eating habits and have you ever talked privately with him not in a group but just privately y'all are driving somewhere you're having lunch together and you just ask him hey dad tell me what's going on man have you ever had that conversation i know that's awkward for a 22 year old to have with his old man

but have you ever had that conversation it's hard but i've been trying a lot more and more i've had a lot more opportunity uh to kind of sit down him more often, like taking long drives in the car and whatnot. So we kind of talk about that stuff a little more, but we don't really dive super into the why it's that way. Yeah. But it's just always been that way for as long as I can remember. Okay. So here's the math on this.

There's a million reasons why he has allowed himself to get to be 400 pounds. It could be medical issues. It could be childhood issues. It could be relational issues that you, as his son, will never, ever know. He'll never divulge those. It could be trauma that he's hanging on to. It could be that he just loves life and he loves eating and he doesn't care. It could be a thousand things. You as an amateur investigator, it's going to end up driving a wedge in your relationship

if you try to get to the root of some of those things and you spend your energy trying to figure out why. Okay? Okay. So here's the hard truth. You can't do anything to make your dad become a steward of his body to want to be around for your grandkids.

There's nothing you can do. I do have one Hail Mary that I think would be an honorable thing for you to do that would give you some peace and that would give him an opportunity to hear you. And what I would recommend doing is I'm going to add a second step to something I recommend everybody do, right? I'm always telling people to write letters to somebody, but I want you to spend some time this holiday season by yourself. And I want you to write a letter to your dad. And really it's going to be a love letter. I want you to talk about how much you care about him, how much you are so thankful that he ended up out of all the people in the world, he ended up your old man, that he's the kind of guy that you can't wait for your kids that you don't even have yet to meet him.

I want it to be a love letter to your old man, one that is respectful and kind. And then here's the next step. And this is going to be hard. Okay. Are you still with me? Yes, sir. I want you to read it to him out loud. Okay. I want you to read it to him out loud. Okay.

I want you to do that in a private setting. I don't want you to embarrass him. Don't do it at dinner. Don't do it at a public restaurant. Don't do it in front of his wife, your mom, or the other brothers and sisters. I want you to tell him that you want to have a private conversation with him and that you love him and you'll never fully know his full story but you

wrote him something that you want him to hear and then when it's over I want you to hug him as tightly as you can and then I want you to give him that letter and tell him I love him, I love you and I'm glad you're my dad and I'm always here for you and I hope you'll always be here for us. And then this is heartbreaking, John, but that's the in the mirror and say, I'm worth it.

And sometimes it's a different why. Sometimes it's a why for grandkids. Sometimes it's a why for the people around me. Usually though, that sort of lifestyle change, especially, and I'm going to frame this as an addiction. Man, addicts don't make good long-term long-term changes for other people they have to decide they are worth that change they have to other people can help kickstart a man but they've got to decide that john and so do something magic and i'll any any son listening to this podcast, to this show, watching this on YouTube, any of you, you want to change your old man's life, you want to fill his heart up, write a letter and then read it to him.

Write a letter and read it to him. It'll be the hardest thing you've ever done. It will be awkward and it will be magic. I still remember several years ago, I met my dad in a Starbucks and I just had to look him in the eye. I didn't write him a letter, but I told him, I just need you to know you did a good job. With me, my brother, my sister, my family, you did a good job. And I watched a guy visibly lose a couple of hundred pounds right in front of me. His shoulders dropped and he just said, man, thank you. It means the world that you told me that. And I wouldn't trade that conversation for anything. The only thing I wish I had done

it way earlier. And my dad and I have had our disagreements over the years as every father and son do. But man, there was something special about being able to look him in the eye and tell him, I'm grateful for you. You did a good job. So John, write that letter. Have that conversation with him. And if you will honor all the listeners of this podcast, call me back. Shoot me an email back.

Let me know how that conversation goes, your dad's response. I'd love to keep in touch with you and see how he's doing. And I'd love to see, more importantly, how you're doing and how you're going to continue to live your life moving forward in the future too. Thank you so much. All right, let's go to Laura in Austin, Texas. Laura, good afternoon. How are we doing?

Hey, thank you so much for taking my call. You bet. Thanks for calling. How can I help? Sure. Sure. So my dad is an alcoholic and a very skilled liar. He's stolen money from my family, I mean, too many times to count, including my little sisters. Yet in my eyes, at least, I always feel like he's the victim, right? I always feel sorry for him. Um, and another thing I think

is important for you to know just for this call, um, is that my stepdad who helped raise me sadly took his life when I was 18. Um, yeah, so I'm 29 now. Um, and my question is, how do I avoid the hurt that follows every new lie and betrayal from my dad, but I'm still hoping for some kind of normal father-daughter relationship in my life? Or should I just stop hoping and pursuing this relationship with him altogether? Yeah, Laura, you've got to let the fantasy go. Okay. And there's a nagging question that lives deep inside your heart, way deep in there, past where the MRIs can see,

that just asks almost on a daily basis, what was so wrong with Laura that her dad wouldn't love her? What was so wrong with Laura that even her stepdad wouldn't stay around? Yeah. And what I need you to hear me say is, that wasn't your fault. Your biological dad was sick. He's hurting in a way that he couldn't manage and so he had to come up with other alternative behaviors to to manage that hurt and it's natural and normal for you to ask

why not me what was what was it about me that wasn't good enough to love and i need you to not ever ask that question again because it wasn't about you okay okay and when you think why did my stepdad reach out to me if he would just have called what could i have done i need you to never ask yourself that question because he wasn't well okay yeah you're so right and he didn't reach out he didn't call no and um he was just gone didn't reach out. He didn't call. No. And he was just gone. Didn't leave anything. Right. No letter, no nothing. Yeah.

So. And so, Laura, since you were about five or six or seven, you've had a little girl who has been working overtime to get men to love her, to try to figure out a new strategy, a new way to get her dad to love and care about her. And it's built up a universe very similar to whatever the Arendelle, whatever the Frozen, you know, the Frozen movies, right? It's just become its own planet, right? And every time there's a holiday rolling up or every time he just shows up unexpectedly and says, hey, I'm coming by, man, that castle door is flinging open. You put on your dress and your makeup and this is going to be the time. And then he leaves a mess and he leaves you with the check or you find out from your little brother that he borrowed something

and didn't give it back, which is another word for stealing and fill in the blank, fill in the blank and you get hurt over and over again. So So here's what you have to do for your soul, for any relationship you're going to have moving forward, is you have to let that fantasy go. You have to grieve the loss. You should have had a dad who loved you more than life itself, and I hate to be the guy, but you didn't. You don't. And that doesn't mean you're not worthy of being loved okay okay so you have to let that go and then you've got to do the hard hard work of and this is this is the demon of growing up in an alcoholic home the only way you get whole laura the only way you get whole is through relationships and the thing that has hurt you over and over and over in your life is relationships.

And so you have to lean in to other people and risk getting hurt again because that's the only path towards healing. And that sucks, doesn't it? It's hard. Yeah. Yeah. I mean, you're so insightful. You know, we've just been talking for like 60 seconds and you've really just narrowed everything down. I'm fortunate to be in a wonderful marriage.

My husband is amazing. Awesome. And a God-loving man. And so, you know, I'm just so grateful and appreciative for that. But the other side of it is I have two little sisters, you know, a 25-year-old and a 16-year-old, and so much of, you know, what I had to find out about my dad, I found out as I was growing up, and part of me just fears for the 16-year-old, um, you know, I know I didn't verbalize that question, but I guess it's just a kind of a continuation. Like, how do I protect her from

him stealing more money from her? And, uh, you know, but without ruining her, you know, the idea of her dad that she's got in her head as a 16 year old. And so what I would tell you, Laura, is you're not ruining that idea you're protecting her he's ruining that idea because he sucks as a dad right and any dad who steals money from his daughter for alcohol any father who steals from his children any father who does not spend every moment they have making sure his daughters know how beautiful they are, how lovely they are, how strong and smart and ninja-like they are. Any dad who doesn't put that investment in isn't worth that title of dad. And so you're not poisoning the image.

What you're doing is you're putting words to the pain that your sister feels. She knows that her dad isn't whole, right? She knows that. You know what she's doing? She definitely knows. She's doing what you did, which is blame herself for it and try to solve that. Right. Right?

Yeah, because he has just this ability to seem like, you know, poor me. Of course. It's like, poor me. Why is all this happening to me, you know? Yes. I'm still this hot shot dad. That's right. And here's what the daughter and son of an addict does.

They spend their whole life trying to make sure dad's okay. Mm-hmm. And it's exhausting because true addicts prey on that because it keeps them from ever having to face the world on their own because somebody's always there trying to make it okay. And the earlier you can turn that light switch on for your sister, not that she's not going to not love that guy. That's her dad. That's your dad, right? Right.

You love him. But I'm not going to give him my heart anymore. I'm not going to give him my heart anymore i'm not going to give him my fantasy anymore i'm going to draw my boundaries to protect me and my family if he shows up for thanksgiving it's going to be on my terms and he will not be drinking we will not give him money he will not stay at the house and when he says well i just don't have a place well that stinks dad we love We love you, man. We'll see you soon. Because these are the boundaries that are going to keep our family safe.

And that's not a dishonorable way of interacting with your father. It's a way of protecting yourself against an abusive person. Right? And you have a husband that loves you. You have won the lottery. You've put the work in relationally. And I want you to do the deep work potentially with your husband. Maybe make it 2021. This is the year y'all are going to go on a marriage retreat, maybe the first time ever. and find out how much of your relationship with your incredible, awesome husband is built on not a co-created relationship together, not a co-created future together, but you making sure he's okay too. If you've managed to avoid that, you're better than most. My guess is that you are living a life of full support and honor and love, but sometimes that comes at the expense of your soul.

And what I don't want you to do is wake up when you're 40 and go, whoa, what happened? Wow. Right? Right. And so this is a beautiful moment for you to say, husband, let's just call him Tom. Hey, Tom, I won the lottery with you, and you're a great, good man, and I'm going to start letting the fantasy of my dad go. And it may mean that my little sister is going to come spend some time with us, right? I'm going to teach her how to budget.

I'm going to teach her how to take care of her money. I'm going to teach her how to apply at college because dad's not going to do those things. And what I want to do over the next few years is I want to begin to dream together. And that may mean you're going to take some college classes. That may mean you're going to have a child. That may mean a whole host of things that you've never even allowed yourself to imagine because your world has been making sure everyone around you is okay all the time. And eventually that implodes on children of addicts. And you are worth being loved and your husband's worth being loved and you all have something magical and beautiful right now. And so if you're intentional about it way, way, way up front and you're open and you communicate honestly with one another, you may need a marriage counselor to walk.

Not because you're broken, but because your things are so good and you want them to be better. And so having a coach that's going to walk alongside you will be awesome. But now this is about rebuilding a new thing, not constantly picking up somebody else's Lego pieces and trying to stick them back together. Does that make sense? Absolutely. And this call was really hard for me to make, but I am so grateful that I did. And thank you so much. No, thank you for calling. And you just said something important, and before I let you go,

I want to honor this. It is hard to have to look in the mirror and say, I've got to let my mom go. I've got to let my dad go. I can't continue in good faith and in good conscience to do this to myself, to my marriage, to my children, to whoever, to my brother and sister, because I've got a parent who sucks. I got a parent who continues to hurt. I got a parent who's dealing with their own demons and they're expecting their children to make them okay. And that's not a child's job. So, Laura, that was, I can't imagine how hard that call was. You're brave and you're strong. You're in the ninja club. Way to go, dude. And more importantly, you just set an example for millions of people

whose dads didn't measure up, whose moms had their own demons and their own fights, and are finally going to be children who say, I'm not fighting my parents' fights anymore. I'm not. I'm going to take care of my heart, my home, my spiritual walk, my family. I'm going to love and honor them, but I'm not going to let them have access to my heart anymore because they hurt me every single time. Laura, you're a rock star.

Good for you. Next time you're out on the town in Austin, have some queso for me. I miss the good Mexican food here in Nashville and it's killing me so have some good queso I would say on me but I don't even have Venmo so I don't know how I would pay you

but you pay for it and you eat it and say this is for Deloney so I appreciate that alright so as we wrap up today's show man one of the greatest songs ever written by

the master I would say he invented the blues but he didn't but it feels good to say that one of the greatest songs ever written by the master. I would say he invented the blues, but he didn't. But it feels good to say that, but it's not true. So you people with your cards and letters, chill out. But it's from the 1969 album Completely Well. It's a cover of a 1951 song by Roy Hawkins. The man with Lucille, B.B. King, singing singing The Thrill Is Gone and it goes like this.

The thrill is gone away. The thrill is gone, baby. The thrill is gone away. You know you done me wrong, baby, and you'll be sorry someday. The thrill is gone. It's gone away from me. The thrill is gone, baby. You getting the theme here, good folks? He's just saying it over and over.

The thrill is gone away from me, although I'll still live on. But so lonely I'll be. The thrill is gone. I'm free from your spell. Oh, I'm free, free, free now. I'm free from your spell. And now that it's all over, I love BB King. All I can do is wish you well.

And good folks, all I'll do is wish you well. This is the Dr. John Deloney Show.