The Dr. John Delony Show - Why Do I Have To Work So Hard for Intimacy?

Episode Date: January 20, 2023

In this episode, we hear from: - A mom desperate to enjoy intimacy with her husband - Delony on his personal drinking habits and the real impact of alcohol on your body - A woman unsure of how to help her sister, who’s addicted to meth Lyrics of the Day: "Brass Monkey" - Beastie Boys Let us know what’s going on by leaving a voicemail at 844.693.3291 or visiting johndelony.com/show.  Support Our Sponsors: BetterHelp DreamCloud Churchill Mortgage Thorne Add products to your cart create an account at checkout Receive 25% off ALL orders Resources: Own Your Past, Change Your Future Questions for Humans Conversation Cards Redefining Anxiety Quick Read John’s Free Guided Meditation Listen to all The Ramsey Network podcasts anytime, anywhere in our app. Download at: https://apple.co/3eN8jNq 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. Learn more about your ad choices. https://www.megaphone.fm/adchoices Ramsey Solutions Privacy Policy

Coming up on the Dr. John Deloney Show. My sister cut off the family. She became involved in suspected criminal activity, started using meth a few months ago. She made it painfully clear that she wants nothing to do with any biological family or lifetime friends. I'm sorry, because I can tell that you love your sister. Yeah. Brass monkey. The funky monkey.

Brass monkey junkie. Dude. License to ill. What a record. Hey, welcome to the Dr. John Deloney Show. I'm John. I'll be your host. Is that what I am?

I'm not really a host. Then host. Is that what I am? I'm not really a host. Then what are... Then what are you? The list of answers to that question is long, Kelly. I know. And mostly inappropriate. What would you be called if you were not the host? I don't know. I guess I'm the host.

I think that's what we're calling... I am the host of the Dr. John Deloney show, and I'm John. It's good to meet you. This is an incredible show. And if you're new to us, I apologize. Not really. It's kind of off the rails. Hey, this is the greatest mental health and marriage and parenting podcast of all time.

And this is the last show we're shooting before we take a short holiday break. And so you're hearing this after the holidays, after the new year, you are already into your workout program. You've already thought about quitting. You've already seen that plate of donuts and you're like, eh, let's just do it. But don't, but you're not, you haven't yet. But for us, we're about to take a break and I am totally fried Everybody Is Ben's just got his head on the board He's drooling

Jenna's asleep over there Kelly She hasn't stopped drinking Since like four days ago She's just in it to win it Oh man Christian's just staring off into space back there He's just

He's Don't even know what day it is And And Andrew Andrew actually is plugged in Cause I think you're part robot. But hey, we're so glad that you've joined us for this last episode for a minute.

For you though, on the feed, it'll be back on Monday or on Wednesday whenever this thing comes out. The feed's not going to change for you. Probably I'm done talking. Is that right? I think you should be. Let's go to Bethany in Fort Wayne.

Listen to Kelly just producing the show like a producer. What's up, Bethany? Hi. How's it going? Good. How are you? Yeah, going. Oh, no.

Oh, man. What's up? Well, I am calling because my husband and I have, well, mostly me. I've had issues with intimacy since we've been married. We've been married for almost five years. And it's just kind of a cycle. I work really hard and it's going good for a month or two. And then life happens and there's something big happens.

And then I have to start all over again afterwards. And I'm kind of sick of it. I want to know how to end the cycle. Yeah, no kidding. So, man, a couple of things you said are heartbreaking. And this is me, not at you, but me with you. So, A, I want to make sure we're we're saying the same things when you talk about intimacy you're talking about having sex and you're talking about just the whole environment around sex in your house um i guess or tell me

i'm wrong what do you mean by intimacy um yeah mostly Okay. Um, and you say it's a, it's a cycle. What is, tell me more about that and, um, talk directly into your phone. I can, uh, having a little bit of trouble hearing you. Um, what do you mean when you say cycle? Um, well, like when we first got married, um, i before we got married i'd been almost engaged with somebody else and there had been some boundary issues there and it took me a while to get over those and actually get to where physical touch and other things were kind of enjoyable. When you say boundary issues, were you sexually assaulted? Not necessarily assaulted, but I never verbally said no,

and it was nothing more than like French kissing. But I didn't want it, and he didn't respond to any physical cues that I was sending. So that was your first time you were in a situation where you felt out of control of your own body? Yes. Okay. All right. And did you have abuse in your own personal past back when you were a kid? No. Okay.

All right. So fast forward to now, then you get married and it's, tell me about this cycle. So that took me a lot to work through. My husband is great. He, one of the reasons why I fell in love with him so fast is because he always asks for everything. He's a consent guy. Oh yeah.

Good. Fantastic. Yeah. he's a consent guy oh yeah good fantastic yeah um so i worked through all those issues i read a lot of books i went to some therapy i did some emdr and it got a lot better and then like i can't remember what happened but i'd have a season of depression and then like something else would crop up that affected intimacy negatively for me. And it's just like every time I'd get good at it, then something would happen. Like we'd have to move or I'd have a kid and then the pause after you have a kid and it'd take me forever to get back into it. And I'd have to work through different things, but I'd have to work all over again. Some of what you're describing is normal life.

Yeah. Like you have a kid and then everything's a disaster all across the – I mean, everything's a disaster, right? Mealtime's a disaster. Sex is a disaster. Your body is not your own right i mean so there's there that adjustment period is natural can i ask you a question and tell me i'm if i'm off base okay okay does somebody tell you sex is really bad i don't think so it wasn't talked about much growing up.

Because your body sounds like it has a response to it. It's not a safe place. Intimacy and connection in an ideal world is a place where you can go be fully yourself because there's nowhere to hide, right? Yeah. You've heard the like, let your freak flag fly, or it's where you literally have no clothes on in front of somebody else, right? And there's nowhere else to hide. So I'm going to be fully me and everywhere else I have to perform. I have to perform at work.

I have to perform at my in-laws house. I got to perform at my parents' house. I got to perform with my kids at school but behind closed doors with somebody that like I am I have I'm handing

all my trust to man we can get off the rails it's a place of safety and security and for your body it is not it's the opposite

where does that come from? maybe some of the depression probably it's just i don't know being that vulnerable is really scary why is that scary like why does your body go go into neutral or go to shut down when um you're being vulnerable because that would tell me that it doesn't only just happen with sex and intimacy it happens when your husband gets frustrated or when you get mad or when you suffer a loss or heartbreak your body does very similar things is that right yeah i think so okay where did your body learn that the best, your best bet, the best way to keep you safe was to disappear? Was to shut it down? I don't know.

Just fears of not being good enough. Who told you you weren't good enough? I don't think my family did, but I mean, it's a really big family. Probably myself, honestly. Sometimes our families tell us things

that plant seeds within us that bloom later on into really gnarly thorn bushes that make life really hard. And sometimes they plant no seeds. So we look up and we're 25 or we're 30 and we have our own kids and there is, there's no fruit to draw on. There's nothing. And you can absorb the story that you're not even worth telling a story to

And then that becomes the story you tell yourself, which is you're not enough Or you're not going to do this right or you're going to screw up or somebody else is going to be disappointed and and and And then that guy who you love Is like hey want to do it? And your body goes into well well, I could fail. I could screw this up. I could not be enough for him. I could fill in the blank.

Is that fair? Yeah, that's about right. Okay. So here's the challenge that I'm hearing. There's two conflicting things happening. One is this depression that's haunted you for a long time. And you're trying to heal it episodically, meaning I want to not feel this particular way about a particular thing.

So it's kind of like your house is on fire and every time the smoke gets in your particular room, you turn on a fan to blow the smoke out. And you're trying to figure out where the smoke's coming from so you can blow the smoke out when really what we need to do is put the smoke out. And you're trying to figure out where the smoke's coming from so you can blow the smoke out when really what we need to do is put the fire out. Do you get what I'm saying? Yeah, I would think so. So the EMDR is trauma-based. And so if that was around

your previous boyfriend taking advantage of you or not responding to your cues and then the resulting guilt and shame, all that stuff that comes from feeling like your body is not your own, right? When somebody steals out from you. EMDR is good for that moment. The broader conversation is sitting with a therapist and a counselor and talking about the generalized depression, the bigger picture. My body has learned over time, your story doesn't matter. You just need to disappear. And what we need to do is over time,

teach that body, nope, I've got needs. I want to live a fun, wild, reckless, exciting, fun adventures of a life because it's short and it goes by really, really fast. And I want to take everything from it I can and I want to give everything from it. I can, I don't want to give everything I can. And so we're going to have to train our body over time about that. That's one thing. The other thing is just the natural ups and downs of being sexually intimate with somebody over a long period of time. Cause there's babies and there's kids and then there's work deadlines and there's travel and then there's gained 30 pounds and then there's lost 40 pounds and then there's wrinkles and then there's remember that time and we used to and now we don't anymore and hey you need to get

testosterone and then you need to get hormone therapy here there's just that the nature of it and so What I am Seeing across the country is people shifting from a it's always going to be on fire, which isn't true to It can be pretty hot talking about where we are right now And Discovering hey you're into this these days and you don't like this anymore but you used to you don't like this anymore and you want to try this and have you're into this these days and you don't like this anymore, but you used to, you don't like this anymore and you want to try this. Have you thought about this? And that's a whole new level of intimacy. Does that make sense?

Yeah. So it's more about taking that negativity that you feel surrounding like, oh, we just had a baby. We haven't been sexually intimate in a long time. I can tell my husband's getting frustrated. I'm getting frustrated, but then my body tenses up and it goes to war every time we try something and it's uncomfortable and it's awkward. It's there that we're going to lean into that and turn that into a moment of intimacy in and of itself. Talking about it. Laughing about it. Being silly about it.

Trying and then stopping and then stopping and trying. We're going to make that not something to run and hide from, but we're going to make that the focus. Is that, is that, is that ringing a bell? Yeah. Okay. I guess I have a question.

I've been through therapy off and on for the last three years. Okay. And I only stopped when I feel like, like I can handle it. And then I ended up having to go back. How do I know when like it actually processed, or do I? When your body doesn't take off on you. Here's the best way I can explain it is, and you can read about this in the book that I wrote. My body responded to economic crises.

It acted as though when I saw a stock ticker and it had a red down arrow that the stock market had lost money. My body would respond so over dramatically. It was as though somebody had a hatchet and they were coming right for me. And I remember I used to laugh because I felt so out of control that a couple of folks in a couple of banks could take everything from me. And I was doing everything right in my home. I felt very, very powerless. Does that make sense? And then after counseling and working and building a non-anxious life over the last five to six to 10 years. Now we're in a recession, heading towards a deeper recession. My body hasn't taken off one time, meaning I've been frustrated and annoyed and I'm heartbroken when I have to, can't buy bacon because the bacon prices are so expensive and I got to choose

between bacon and bread. But I'm not staying up until 2 a.m. and then waking up again at 3.30 a.m. on high alert all the time. And I can't talk to my kids. I'm like a taser. So I'm healed. I'm still worrying about it. I'm still frustrated by it, but my body didn't go to war and your body goes to shutdown. And so it's, you will know when you're able to, when your husband says, Hey, is tonight a good sex night? And you say, no, not tonight, but I would love to just snuggle on the couch and hold, hold you tight for a while and watch a show. And when you say those words, your heart doesn't start beating really fast. You're not washed over in shame and frustration and you're able to own your needs in that moment. Does that make sense? Yeah. So it happens like that for a while and then I start back over again.

So what I want you to do is to start really paying close attention when you feel the cycle starting. What is different? What is happening in your life? Is your diet different? Are you sleeping differently? Is your work schedule or your husband's work schedule? Is there a holiday coming up? What is it in the environment that starts to kick that cycle up again?

Okay. And I just want to be really specific about tracking that kind of stuff, even if it's going to get a 99-cent journal at Walmart. And then when it comes to sex and intimacy, I want you really to remember this. This is from Emily Nagoski, who, if you haven't, I used to talk about the book all the time. I haven't in a while. I recommend anybody who's having conversations in their home,

like, you know, just a married couple sitting there talking about how they want to improve their sex life or change their sex life. There's a book called Come As You Are that Emily Nagoski wrote. It's a masterpiece. It's incredible. She was the first person I ever heard so eloquently put outside of nerd science journals that there's no such thing as a sex drive. That's not real. That one person has more of a sex drive and one person has less of a sex drive. And women's sex drive is just men's sex drive light.

That's not true. Really, sexual desire is a series of gas pedals and brakes. And the goal is, how can we work together, you and your husband, to take off as many breaks as possible and make the environment more gas pedals. What that means is you're not just focusing on what gets you off in the bedroom or what you will or won't do in the bedroom. It's more about how do we create a context in our home, in our life cycle, so that sex becomes a place that we want to run to, that becomes a great escape, not another chore. So what I mean by that is, is it a clean home? Is it all the dishes are done? Is it flirty notes throughout the day?

Is it the oil changed? People who've had sexual trauma in their past often smells are really intense. And so maybe it's no cologne or you got to brush your teeth or it's I need you to take a shower first. Whatever the things are, you don't feel good about your body. So we're going to dim the lights. Whatever the thing is or the things are, we're going to create a world where sex can happen. Not we're going to try to force a game of baseball in the middle of a winter storm. No, dude. Let's create a world where baseball sounds like it's a great idea.

Does that make sense? Yeah. Yeah, it does. That can be a ton of fun for you and your husband to dream about how do we create an environment that makes this, that there's no breaks and it's all gas pedals. And then we're going to put sex on the calendar. How many little kids do you have? Three. Good gosh. Yes, you have to put on the calendar. And let me tell you, Bethany, nobody wants to do that. Nobody wants to put sex on the calendar. I've never seen a Hollywood movie where they're like, hi, hi, next Tuesday, 4.15 PM. That has never happened. It's always like Titanic and there's the car and then there's like the handprint on the wall and it's this passion and i'm gonna die for you

None of that's real You got three little kids you got to put on the calendar And let's let's set a goal two times a week Five times a week 17 times. I'm just kidding 17 17 times that's a lot if that's safe that's how y'all roll that's how you roll that's a lot but let's let's put on the calendar and let's talk about it let's talk about it what would a world of nothing but gas pedals in your home be and how can your husband honor you and help make that happen and And for him, what's a world of gas pedals? Not of just breaks of, I don't like this. I don't like this. No, dude, this, what if this was the way our life was? And then we were very intentional about, we're going to have sex on these days

at these times. And I'm going to help with bedtime. I'm going to help with this. I'm going to help with this. We're going to create this context and you are going to do the hard work of tracking this cycle so that when it starts heading south, you know, oh, it's when I eat this and do this and talk to them and don't take care of this. Or it's when the weather gets like this, or it's possibly hormonal. I need to work with my doctor. That's where we're going to start pulling that apart. We're going to track it. And then we're going to teach our body over time that there's a different way to respond to some of these stressors. You're on the right path, Bethany, and be really gracious with yourself. You got three little ones. You're in Indiana. It's cold. Be nice to Bethany. Be nice to Bethany. We'll be right back.

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It's time for Facts Are Your Friends. Ben and his bell-bottom rock music. Like an Epiphone flying V plugged into a fuzz box. Some Marlboro Reds. Way to go. He's looking at me like, do what? You know how I roll. Exactly.

All right. So I need to make this abundantly clear on the front end of this facts for your friends. This is not a conversation about judgment. This is not a conversation about me casting blame or stones. I know there's a lot to be said about what we're going to talk about for the next few minutes. So I've learned this the hard way on social media. I can say something like, hey, moms or dads, don't yell at your kids. And some of you hear that and you go, you're right. I need to not do that.

But some of you immediately get triggered and you go, oh yeah, well, dads and husbands, whoever I'm not talking to, they need to stop. You're right. So this is one of those topics that the moment I say it, you're going to either go, not me, or you don't even know what I'm dealing with, or I'm such a loser, or some of you are really, really underwater with this issue. And so I want to be as gentle as possible and be honest, be honest. And this is us just sitting down having a chit chat over a card table. Okay. So just think of it. Um, this is not me talking at talking down to you. It's me talking with you. Okay. I want to talk about drinking alcohol. Um, here's, here is, um,

why this became an issue with me. Um, I rarely drink. I just don't like it that much. I'll have one drink here or there. It's really, really rare that I have two. Not because I have any judgment against it, whatever. In fact, there's times I wish I did. I just don't feel good. I just don't like it. I don't feel good. I just get bloaty and blech. But then I got this whoop strap and I noticed even when I would have one glass of wine, if it had one beer or one of these fancy bourbons, one of my colleagues has, my sleep would flush itself down the toilet. It was so dysregulated. I couldn't believe it. And then I started asking my other friends here at the office who also had whoops and we were comparing data and talking about it because it was a relatively new product at the time.

This was a couple years ago. And it has happened to everybody. And what was interesting is all of us were quietly in our own worlds essentially just quitting drinking for one reason. It screwed up our sleep so bad that we could go to bed at the exact same time and wake up at the exact same time, but our sleep was so screwed up. And so then my wife got it and she noticed it, right? And then in short order, it was one of those, huh, oh yeah, our dinner bills. When we would go out to eat, the bill was so much less. And then grocery bills were so much less. And then thinking about, hey, do we need to Uber here? All that stuff just kind of shifted. And so I saw what happened in my personal life.

Things just got less expensive, less burdensome, and my sleep was better. And so I began wondering like, why was I having one or two drinks? Like what was that getting me? And that started me down a rabbit hole of the literature. And I was going to go through all the literature and stuff. Listen, Andrew Huberman over at the Huberman Lab podcast, I'm recommending you go find it. After you get done with the show, go find it. He does a two-hour plus, two-and-a-half-hour masterclass on alcohol. brain which hormones and brain chemicals it affects he really does his best to find some redeeming quality i'll be a little more there's just very little redeeming quality it just messes up most of your body ethanol is a poison i wish it was another thing but it's a poison and so then kelly sent me this article the other day that was published by the AP News. Post-pandemic, the rate of deaths that can directly be attributed to alcohol rose nearly 30% in the US during the first year of COVID.

The rates have continued to be up net over what they've ever been. The rate of such death has been increasing in two decades before the pandemic by 7% or less each year. In 2020, they rose 26%. It's the highest rate recorded in at least 40 years. Such deaths are two and a half times more common in men than in women, but both rose in 2020, the study found. And there's been a couple of great articles and even a remarkable book. I'll link to it in the show notes. The titles just left me here about alcohol consumption in women and how the cool thing for women became, oh, yeah, she drinks beer or she drinks whiskey or drinks bourbon.

And that was a way that everybody felt women were getting a seat at the table. But there was a particular pressure among women to, oh, yeah, I can drink this or this. And it was a part of an overall power play, part of a move. And women are paying a toll with their physical and psychological health. And then there's the whole wine Wednesday or wine and Wednesday, or what's it called? What's it called, Kelly?

There's wine Wednesday. There's so, so much around. It's a stay at home mom culture. It's wine down Wednesday. Winehome mom culture Mommy juice, day drinking Day drinking You can buy cute little shirts Yeah, rose all day

And all that stuff And you notice you should go to Target or go to any of these little boutique shops Or Walmart It's all sweatshirts and little towels Just about how fun day drinking is Because I have to do it It's my only way to get through my life. And then I noticed it when Mad Men came out,

but it just all across the country, office complexes, men, everybody started drinking more. They started drinking more. And I don't know if it's because it looked cool. I don't know if that's the show. I just noticed a non-scientific correlation between the two.

There's nothing causal about it. Everybody's just drinking more. A lot. And then there's this JAMA, the Journal of American Medical Association. They looked at a wider range of deaths linked to drinking. So there's deaths by people who just drink themselves to death, right? But then there's motor vehicle accidents, suicides.

Often people who are considering dying by suicide will drink enough to take their inhibition away. And it leaves them with no breaks on a forever decision. Falls, cancers, pancreatic cancer, liver cancer, and other things. So there's thousands and thousands, tens and tens and tens of thousands of deaths are from drinking too much over a long period of time. And tens and tens and tens and tens of thousands of deaths are tied to acute intoxication. I fell down. I got in a wreck. I died by suicide, whatever it happens to be. And then there's obviously chronic dangers such as high blood pressure and stroke and heart disease and liver cancer, all this kind of stuff. So here's all I want to say today in today's Facts of Your Friends. It's a new year. As I've had this conversation with more and more people

across the country, particularly with moms and with business owners, and then more and more with police officers, military folks, dads, it's run on the gamut. I want you to be very intentional about examining or re-examining the role alcohol plays in your life. Here's where that's really important. I used to pass out a survey to all my incoming students, particularly like I did at the law school. I did it at a couple other places, but it was just a social norming survey. What's your drug use? What's your alcohol use? What's your sexual habits? I wanted to get a snapshot of what the incoming student body thought about the world, how they responded to the world. And I would always read these statistics to the students. And what was always fascinating is if the students thought 95% of

people got drunk once a week, but the self-reported data was actually 65% of people got drunk once a week. So they were off by a chunk, right? So I would read those. And the point was, hey, if you think everybody's getting drunk all the time, the reality is they're not. If you think everybody's having a glass of wine at 1130 in the morning, just because the baby won't stop screaming or because your boss is kicking your butt, they're not. They're actually not. And it's this weird self-fulfilling prophecy, I always remember the statistic that broke my heart and would silence the room. And it was 80 to 90, sometimes mid to high 90s, 90% of people drank to feel more sexy, drank to facilitate engagement and sexual behaviors. And every time I told the entire auditorium, the entire theater,

if you have to drink in order to be with somebody, that is a way you are overriding your body's innate systems to do something your body is telling you it doesn't want to do. And the same can be said for going out, for feeling sexy, for having hard conversations, for having fun, for going to sleep. If you are drinking to override your body's signaling system, that sleep is scary, that there's too much chaos going on in your life, that your partner isn't safe, that your work environment is a mess, that you are uncomfortable being around people. Those are individual things that you can work on with a counselor, that you can work on with a community of friends, that you can work on with a journal, some of those things.

But when you drink to cover up parts of your life, just so you can endure it, man. I just want you to hear me say your life's worth more than that. And I would rather have a season of discomfort getting to the bottom of why does my body tense up when I'm around you? Because we're married. Let's get to the bottom of why does my body tense up when I'm around you? Because we're married. Let's get to the bottom of that. Let's just don't have three or four drinks just so we can have sex once a week. Let's don't do that. Now, if it's a part of, if it's a, I'm not going to tell you to not drink. Okay. I'm not going to tell you to not enjoy your life, to not go have fun, all that kind

of stuff. I just want you to be conscious about how and when you're using alcohol. Also, if you are struggling with an alcohol addiction, let this be the year. Let this be the podcast. Let this be the minute that you push pause on this show and you call somebody and you say, I need help. Day one. Or that you get out your phone and find the next meeting and you're there Sitting in the back row Looking around wide-eyed, but you're there Let this be the year that we're done poisoning our bodies and our relationships and our mind and we say we're going to engage life

And it's going to be hell on earth, especially at the beginning But you are worth that We're going to engage life and it's going to be hell on earth, especially at the beginning. But you are worth that. You're worth that. So again, it's not about judgment. This is about y'all are just my friends. It's not about you won't see me with a drink someday. You probably will.

It's about being very conscious of what is this drink doing for me? And more importantly, what do I need this? And if I don't need it, why am I doing it? Why am I doing it? The alcohol death is growing in the U S and it's up to us to change that. Some of that's going to be, most of that's going to be us deciding let's build a life worth deciding. Let's build a life worth living. Let's build a life. Let's build a non-anxious life that we don't have to run and hide from. Let's get people in our lives. Let's create a context where we can walk right through the middle of it.

So that's facts of your friends. Examine your relationship with alcohol. You're worth it. We'll be right back all right let's go to uh christine in san antonio home of the alamo and peewee herman's bike in the basement what's up christine hey dr d how are you partying man what are you up to i am in crisis management mode but i am okay oh Oh, man. I got you. I don't know if I got you or not. I just like to declare that.

I hope you do. That's why I'm calling. So what's up? What's up? First of all, I just wanted to tell you thank you for doing the Lord's work. I do miss your horse noises. We unfortunately missed you in San Antonio and your Christmas edition of your questions for humans. What?

So hopefully we'll get to do both soon. I know. I saw it and I meant to order it and then I waited for the Black Friday sale. They were all gone. So, I'm sad. I think there's a deck over there on the customer service counter.

If it's there, Jenna will get it and mail it to you. Okay? You're the sweetest. Thank you so much. You'll get it after Christmas. But if they're sold out. Oh, it's fine.

If they're sold out, they're gone already? Good gosh. Okay, never mind. They're sold out. They're just, they're nodding to me. That's. Good gosh. Okay. Nevermind. They're sold out. They're just, they're, they're nodding to me. That's all right. My bad. I appreciate it. Hopefully we get to see you next time you're in the area. Awesome. I've got an event coming up in Austin in a few

weeks. Maybe y'all can come up then. Yeah. Yeah. We'll definitely try to make that happen. So my old question was, and if you give me, I'm sorry, I have it written down two minutes. I will get through this spiel and then I'm all yours. Thank you. My old question was in my situation, does love look like sending a Christmas card or not? However, things have changed. My younger sister went off the charts. She's breaking ceilings and all the wrong kinds of way. Our family values growing up to not reflect this behavior. A few months ago, she blindsided our family and acted erratically, left her own home and lived with friends that no one knew she had.

She's found to be using drugs. Then last night, she reaches out and asks us for help. So my new questions are, what kind of mental health professional can I reach out that can give her the help she needs? Someone who can actually determine facts from fiction, as she is a very convincing liar and could be hiding truths out of fear of repercussions from the people she's staying with. Two, is there a way to get a mandatory mental health evaluation, possibly while a medical exam is being conducted?

Is that something medical professionals can enforce? Because we've tried to get assistance from local PD from multiple occasions, and we've been met every time with a lot of resistance and no help. And then overall, if you have any other recommendations, I'm an open book. The situation, my sister cut off the family. She became involved in suspected criminal activity, started using meth a few months ago. She made it painfully clear that she wants nothing to do with any biological family or lifetime friends. She recently gave up permanent custody of her son. It was a fight to protect him, but we did it.

When it comes to her, she's an adult who's very sick and needs help, but the law's not helping us at all. I'm done. All I expect to you. So first, I just want to say I'm sorry, because I can tell that you love your sister. Yeah. And Christmas is going to have a big hole in it this year yeah it's been hard

yeah and she's probably I'm the one in the family who's helping I'm the emergency management manager who gave you that role I was put in that role I naturally fall into it everybody listens to me okay Who gave you that role? I was put in that role.

I naturally fall into it. Everybody listens to me. Okay. So I would say I rise to the occasion because that's... I would suggest you resign your position immediately. Okay. Okay. Okay. Okay. Okay.

The first thing out of the gate I want you to really work on, and this might be you writing a letter to your sister that you're never going to send. This might be your 12-year-old self writing a letter to your 10-year-old sister, however old the age difference is between the two of you but there won't be any healing until you switch off your judgment switch and you switch on your i'm with you switch okay okay everything in your letter from about i mean not from your letter from what you just read everything from this isn't the family values that she knows and she's doing this and she's doing this and I'm trying to do this says it's from a position of she's a puppy who keeps peeing in the floor and I don't know how

to get her to stop. And I'm her owner. And I understand how somebody who's messed out of their mind and they're abandoning their family and their children it feels like like it feels like the pipes just burst in the house but if you bring that chaotic energy to somebody who's struggling with addiction like this that that energy is jet fuel for the problematic behaviors. And there's a lot of research about it. And it gets a lot of bad press. But healing from addiction, healing from drug use almost never comes from upping the aggression ante. Okay.

Okay. That's number one. So I want you to take off any sort of superiority. Maybe begin to ask yourself the question, what in bloody hell happened in her life? Things you know about, things you may not know about.

That this is how she's got to get through her day. Okay. What in the world happened? And my guess is you probably know some of it. And my guess is there may be a couple of things that your eyes would pop out of your head if you heard. Yeah. Either or, right?

All that to say is it just changes the posture to get your butt in here to, I really love it if you came home. That's two different propositions, right? So that's number one. Number two, I know you're right in the middle of it, and this is hard. I want to back out and respect what the police officers are doing, even though it's super frustrating. Our entire system is based on not taking away somebody's civil rights.

And so the threshold to look at another adult and say, you have lost the privilege of being in control of your own life. That's the premise of this country. However screwed up we've gotten it. And make no mistake about that. We've screwed that up for years and years and years but that's one of the foundational premises and so to get a government agency to take away agency from another adult is very very hard that bar is very high and usually it's harmed to self or others and there is a pretty significant bifurcation between mental health. If you have schizophrenia versus you're an addict, our approach to addiction in this country is still very punitive.

You are breaking the rules versus you're sick with a disease. Yeah. See what I'm saying? And so if your sister had schizophrenia or you might have a better chance of getting medical power of attorney over her or having her some sort of involuntary commitment if she was experiencing suicidal ideation or anything like that. Having a sister who's doing meth, it's going to be very, very hard outside of she gets busted with meth and she goes to jail and has to clean up there. Yeah, we actually tried that and the police were not helpful at all. We're just trying to get her removed from the environment that she's choosing to be because homelessness for the last 48 hours, completely hungry and starving and frantic. Why is she making that choice? Is it because she's...

It's a great question. Is she still high? Is she still not in her right mind? I suspect she's not in her right mind. And we called police and I officially requested a medical eval on site and they just said, well, there's not enough indicators here

in your family for not helping her, like taking her in and stuff. So what, what does that look like if you do bring her home? Um, will she come home at the moment? Okay. I don't, I mean, she may or may not. Um, but I don't trust her. Um, I don't trust that she went stab me or something like that. What in your world has given you inclination that she is violent? She gets erratic and she's already made a false police report against my brother for beating her and our family for beating her when nobody has. That discharge has obviously got dropped, but I just can't trust her in my own home because she's happy to create false cps reports police reports you name it okay um and the few times this

situation has happened in my life not with family members but with people who i love close enough that i consider them family um i have resorted to two things it's very very difficult number one writing a letter and the reason i write a is so they can hold on to it. And it has amazed me how people have hung on to those things. When they literally hang on to nothing else, they hang on to these. And the letter starts with, I love you. And I miss you. That's how the letter starts.

Yeah. And when you're ready, I'll be here. Yeah. And the second thing is you got to open your hands and let go because she is clearly communicating, I'm an adult and I do not want you in my life. Unless it's convenient. Yeah, exactly. if she's holding something that says, when you are ready, because helping somebody who is abusing drugs, helping somebody who's struggling with alcohol intake, somebody who's struggling with any number of things, is right and good and hard, and those people don't have a right to be abusive to you.

Right? So it's easy for the cops, whatever police officer said, well, you're just a comeback family for not taking them in. Yeah, she doesn't have a right to come to your house and verbally harass you or to make fake reports or to beat y'all up or anything like that. So when she's ready, it might be that you will pay the first week of – or you will get with the family and y'all will have the funds to make sure she can go to rehab. Because that's where she's – her first stop has got to be at a 30-day inpatient treatment facility. Yeah, we're doing that right now. I've got some treatment facilities lined up, and I'm hoping I can convince her.

I mean, obviously I can't talk her into going if she doesn't want to go, but I'm going to present the options, and if she says yes, take her there. Yeah. I'll drop you off. Yep. And I'll be the first one picking you up, cheering you when I'm allowed to. But I can't make you do this. I can't.

I can't. I'm not your parent. I'm just someone who loves you and it's killing me to watch what's happening. Who got custody of her child? My parents. Okay. I'm sorry. Me too.

And I'm going to tell you one more thing that is also hard to hear. You're also still allowed to enjoy your Christmas. Yeah. And every time you smile or laugh or put joy in the world or overtip a waiter or waitress at some restaurant, you're injecting beauty into the world. You're not taking, you're not violating something. You're not ruining something. You know what I mean? Mm-hmm.

And so I would do the best I could to laugh as much as I can, as hard as it's going to be to go over serve and over give and have fun with my kids. I would try my best as hard as it's going to be because the alternative is, is she's having a miserable Christmas holiday because she's hurting so badly and she's making some tough, tough, dangerous, scary,

bad choices. And I guess I'm just going to choose to be miserable too see how that didn't help anything no and we've been as a family this has been a shared family trauma from the start we've been very intentional about still celebrating our ups and downs there's been a lot to celebrate it's just a lot of up you know it's a roller coaster yeah um i would if i was you, to go back to my original thing, I would resign my position as the family crisis

responder. Okay. It's not your job. It's your mom and dad's job. And if they choose to not do that, cool. I'll choose to be a sister. But I'm not going to be the person that coordinates all the phone calls and all the stuff and all this.

Because what you're doing is, A, you're getting your self-esteem from being the hero, and that's a dangerous place to be. The second thing is, is you are trying to control the behaviors of a whole bunch of different adults, and it's exhausting, and it doesn't work. Yes. And they all end up resenting you. And it's not even you that did it, but they resent you. Right?

Yeah. Oh, God. Christine's calling again. Oh, great. Christine's going to be asking us for just quit. And I would use that language. Hey, family, I'm resigning from this crisis responder. That's not my job.

My job is to be your daughter. My job is to be her sister. Those are my two jobs. That's what my job. My job is to be your daughter. My job is to be her sister. Those are my two jobs. That's what I'm going to do. I'm going to do them really, really well. And then I'm going to move on from there. And you're going to have to heal from hero complex because you can't save all these adults. The only person on planet Earth you can control, unfortunately, is you. Let's make sure you're well and you're whole and we're down from the position of judgment.

We're not at, at, at, we are with. Then when she's ready, she'll know you're safe. And that's the worst. I'm so, so sorry. Don't quit fighting for her. Don't quit fighting for her. But don't lose yourself in the worst. I'm so, so sorry. Don't quit fighting for it. Don't quit fighting for it, but don't lose yourself in the process. We'll be right back.

Hey, what's up? Deloney here. Listen, you and me and everybody else on the planet has felt anxious or burned out or chronically stressed at some point. In my new book, Building a Non-Anxious Life, you'll learn the six daily choices that you can make to get rid of your anxious feelings and be able to better respond to whatever life throws at you so you can build a more peaceful, non-anxious life. Get your copy today at johndeloney.com. All right, as we wrap up today's show, off the License to Ill record,

the great and wonderful Beastie Boys, Brass Monkey, goes like this. I got this dance that's more than real. Drink Brass Monkey. Here's how you feel. Put your left leg down and your right leg up, and you tilt your head back. Let's finish the cup.

MCA with a bottle, and D rocks the can. Adrock gets nice with Charlie Chan. We've offered Moet. We don't mind Chivas. Chivas. Wherever we go, we bring the monkey with us. Adrock drinks three. Mike D is D.

Double R foots the bill most definitely. Oh, everybody. Make good choices.