Rachel Casey (00:00:04):
All right, everybody, welcome to Sober Banter.
Rachel Casey (00:00:06):
My name is Rachel, and I am hosting solo, but I am not solo.
Rachel Casey (00:00:10):
Today,
Rachel Casey (00:00:11):
I have Tim Lineweaver,
Rachel Casey (00:00:13):
not only a dad in recovery,
Rachel Casey (00:00:16):
a grandfather in recovery,
Rachel Casey (00:00:17):
but also works as a therapist in recovery.
Rachel Casey (00:00:20):
Welcome, Tim.
Tim Lineaweaver (00:00:21):
Thank you so much, Rachel.
Tim Lineaweaver (00:00:23):
I'm glad to be here today.
Rachel Casey (00:00:24):
What is your sobriety date?
Tim Lineaweaver (00:00:26):
It is August 27th, 1984.
Rachel Casey (00:00:31):
1984.
Rachel Casey (00:00:31):
That is four decades of sobriety.
Rachel Casey (00:00:36):
Congratulations.
Tim Lineaweaver (00:00:37):
Thank you.
Tim Lineaweaver (00:00:37):
I just celebrated 40 years last August.
Rachel Casey (00:00:42):
How did that feel picking up?
Rachel Casey (00:00:43):
Did you get a chip?
Tim Lineaweaver (00:00:45):
I ordered my own chip.
Tim Lineaweaver (00:00:47):
It's interesting.
Tim Lineaweaver (00:00:48):
I normalized recovery in my life for many years.
Tim Lineaweaver (00:00:53):
I didn't celebrate except mentally, if that makes sense.
Tim Lineaweaver (00:00:57):
I'd be like, oh,
Tim Lineaweaver (00:00:58):
I have X number of years today, but 40 was a big number.
Tim Lineaweaver (00:01:02):
I wanted to just celebrate that a little bit.
Tim Lineaweaver (00:01:05):
So it was great.
Tim Lineaweaver (00:01:07):
My kids came from all their far-flung places.
Tim Lineaweaver (00:01:11):
My grandkids came and we had a lot of friends over and it was just a really nice
Tim Lineaweaver (00:01:15):
kind of celebration and it made me feel really good.
Tim Lineaweaver (00:01:18):
Yeah.
Rachel Casey (00:01:19):
That's a big accomplishment.
Rachel Casey (00:01:20):
Did your kids see you drink or were you sober by the time?
Tim Lineaweaver (00:01:24):
Let's see.
Tim Lineaweaver (00:01:25):
My daughter's first year, I was still addicted.
Tim Lineaweaver (00:01:28):
I was absent a lot from her life.
Tim Lineaweaver (00:01:31):
Yeah, I'd be in and out.
Tim Lineaweaver (00:01:33):
At one years old though?
Tim Lineaweaver (00:01:34):
Well, let's see.
Tim Lineaweaver (00:01:34):
She would have been a year and two months is when I went to treatment.
Tim Lineaweaver (00:01:37):
And since then, we had my stepson and then my other son was born.
Tim Lineaweaver (00:01:43):
So they have not seen me drinking or using.
Tim Lineaweaver (00:01:46):
Thank God.
Rachel Casey (00:01:46):
My son was two when I got sober.
Rachel Casey (00:01:48):
Didn't go to treatment.
Rachel Casey (00:01:49):
I have two nieces.
Rachel Casey (00:01:51):
One, I was drinking when she was born and it was pretty bad.
Rachel Casey (00:01:54):
And then the other one,
Rachel Casey (00:01:56):
when she was born,
Rachel Casey (00:01:57):
it was really surreal because I'm like,
Rachel Casey (00:01:59):
this is someone who will never see her aunt drink.
Rachel Casey (00:02:03):
Like I was holding her sober and I'm just like...
Rachel Casey (00:02:06):
I can say, it was special.
Rachel Casey (00:02:09):
It felt really cool.
Rachel Casey (00:02:11):
And not to say that my other niece, obviously, she was my first.
Rachel Casey (00:02:14):
It was still very special, but it's really different.
Tim Lineaweaver (00:02:17):
Yeah, it is.
Tim Lineaweaver (00:02:18):
It totally is.
Rachel Casey (00:02:20):
And my mom is sober.
Rachel Casey (00:02:22):
She got sober when I turned 21.
Rachel Casey (00:02:24):
My son was her first grandson.
Rachel Casey (00:02:26):
And she says being a sober grandma is definitely the biggest blessing.
Rachel Casey (00:02:30):
And it's hard, though, being new in recovery as a parent.
Rachel Casey (00:02:34):
So what was that like back in...
Rachel Casey (00:02:36):
Like, take me back to 1984.
Tim Lineaweaver (00:02:38):
I grew up in an alcoholic home.
Tim Lineaweaver (00:02:40):
My father was a real, what we would call a chronic alcoholic.
Tim Lineaweaver (00:02:44):
He was sort of known for his drinking.
Tim Lineaweaver (00:02:46):
He was an interesting guy.
Tim Lineaweaver (00:02:47):
He was a writer, fished, hunted.
Tim Lineaweaver (00:02:50):
He wrote for course illustrated for four years, had some medical complications, lost the job.
Tim Lineaweaver (00:02:57):
We moved up to Cape Cod, Massachusetts, and his alcoholism had a really big effect on me.
Tim Lineaweaver (00:03:03):
And I started to drink when I was 13.
Tim Lineaweaver (00:03:05):
I smoked pot the same year.
Tim Lineaweaver (00:03:09):
I started to smoke cigarettes when I was 12.
Tim Lineaweaver (00:03:12):
By the time I was probably in my late teens, I was an early to mid-stage alcoholic.
Tim Lineaweaver (00:03:19):
Started using cocaine.
Tim Lineaweaver (00:03:21):
Long story short,
Tim Lineaweaver (00:03:22):
by the time 1984 rolled around,
Tim Lineaweaver (00:03:24):
I had really blown up my life,
Tim Lineaweaver (00:03:28):
ended up divorced,
Tim Lineaweaver (00:03:29):
trying to get custody back of my daughter and visitation and stuff.
Tim Lineaweaver (00:03:33):
And she was kind of the most, at least the initial motivation for that.
Tim Lineaweaver (00:03:38):
As I say, my son, too.
Tim Lineaweaver (00:03:39):
Like, I feel that it's.
Tim Lineaweaver (00:03:41):
And probably you can probably speak to this, too.
Tim Lineaweaver (00:03:43):
For me, it was sort of like, OK, I know what I went through with my dad.
Tim Lineaweaver (00:03:47):
You all want to put my kids through that?
Tim Lineaweaver (00:03:49):
No, I don't.
Tim Lineaweaver (00:03:50):
I want it to be different.
Tim Lineaweaver (00:03:51):
And that that was at least one of the things that really called me to recover.
Rachel Casey (00:03:56):
Yeah, and my dad is also what you say, currently chronic, alcoholic.
Rachel Casey (00:04:02):
I looked in the mirror and I was exactly what I'd swore I wanted to be.
Tim Lineaweaver (00:04:08):
I had the exact same experience.
Rachel Casey (00:04:10):
Best thing that ever happened, though.
Tim Lineaweaver (00:04:12):
I mean, that's the downside, but there's the upside.
Tim Lineaweaver (00:04:14):
I came home.
Tim Lineaweaver (00:04:16):
I'd been on a binge for a couple of days.
Tim Lineaweaver (00:04:19):
They came home.
Tim Lineaweaver (00:04:20):
My wife was understandably very upset.
Tim Lineaweaver (00:04:22):
My first wife, you know, I was like, where the hell have you been?
Tim Lineaweaver (00:04:25):
And what are you, you know, what are you doing?
Tim Lineaweaver (00:04:27):
And I exploded and I was rooting around in the refrigerator for a beer.
Tim Lineaweaver (00:04:31):
Yeah.
Tim Lineaweaver (00:04:32):
And I had a jar of mustard in my hand for some reason.
Tim Lineaweaver (00:04:36):
I flung it against the wall and it exploded.
Tim Lineaweaver (00:04:39):
My daughter burst into gasping tears.
Tim Lineaweaver (00:04:43):
I walked out of the kitchen and there happened to be a mirror in the hall.
Tim Lineaweaver (00:04:46):
I looked at myself and it was like,
Tim Lineaweaver (00:04:48):
oh my God,
Tim Lineaweaver (00:04:48):
I looked just like my father when he would be raging.
Tim Lineaweaver (00:04:52):
And it was like...
Tim Lineaweaver (00:04:54):
I didn't get sober immediately after that, but not long after that I did.
Tim Lineaweaver (00:04:59):
And I really had that feeling of like, I'm really losing my grip.
Tim Lineaweaver (00:05:04):
I'm becoming what I said I would never become.
Tim Lineaweaver (00:05:07):
And that was another motivation for getting into recovery.
Rachel Casey (00:05:12):
When you were in early sobriety, I mean, phones were not the way it is now.
Rachel Casey (00:05:16):
Technology wasn't the way it is now.
Rachel Casey (00:05:18):
So how did early recovery, what did that look like for you?
Tim Lineaweaver (00:05:21):
I tell people that for me,
Tim Lineaweaver (00:05:23):
early recovery was kind of a rock fight in a sense,
Tim Lineaweaver (00:05:27):
because by the time I had made the decision to get sober,
Tim Lineaweaver (00:05:31):
the unmanageability,
Tim Lineaweaver (00:05:33):
as they say,
Tim Lineaweaver (00:05:33):
of my life was really...
Tim Lineaweaver (00:05:35):
I was separated from my wife, soon to be divorced.
Tim Lineaweaver (00:05:38):
The IRS came after me for back taxes.
Tim Lineaweaver (00:05:41):
All I had was a high school diploma.
Tim Lineaweaver (00:05:44):
And guess what my line of work was?
Tim Lineaweaver (00:05:46):
I was a bartender.
Tim Lineaweaver (00:05:47):
They were pretty tough circumstances.
Tim Lineaweaver (00:05:49):
But I would also say...
Tim Lineaweaver (00:05:51):
some real beneficial gains that kept me in it.
Tim Lineaweaver (00:05:56):
And I should also mention, I craved a ton too.
Tim Lineaweaver (00:05:59):
Like I would just go through the day craving.
Tim Lineaweaver (00:06:02):
My way of coping with that was to eat ice cream.
Tim Lineaweaver (00:06:04):
So that kind of,
Tim Lineaweaver (00:06:06):
but I would also have these really wonderful moments where,
Tim Lineaweaver (00:06:11):
oh my God,
Tim Lineaweaver (00:06:12):
I feel kind of like a whole person here.
Tim Lineaweaver (00:06:16):
oh my God, this music I'm listening to right now is so great.
Tim Lineaweaver (00:06:21):
There was sort of a spirituality to it that was really encouraging.
Tim Lineaweaver (00:06:27):
I also was lucky.
Tim Lineaweaver (00:06:28):
I had a very empathetic, nonjudgmental therapist that was really encouraging.
Tim Lineaweaver (00:06:34):
And sometimes I would go to her and I'd be like, oh my God, my life sucks.
Tim Lineaweaver (00:06:38):
I'm getting divorced, the IRS.
Tim Lineaweaver (00:06:40):
What am I going to do?
Tim Lineaweaver (00:06:42):
And she would say,
Tim Lineaweaver (00:06:43):
Keep with it.
Tim Lineaweaver (00:06:44):
Don't quit.
Tim Lineaweaver (00:06:45):
It's going to get better.
Tim Lineaweaver (00:06:46):
Keep going.
Tim Lineaweaver (00:06:47):
And she was right.
Tim Lineaweaver (00:06:48):
It did.
Tim Lineaweaver (00:06:48):
A lot better.
Rachel Casey (00:06:50):
Yeah.
Rachel Casey (00:06:51):
Did you go through AA or you kind of did it with the therapist where that's where
Rachel Casey (00:06:57):
you went through kind of the trauma work?
Tim Lineaweaver (00:07:00):
Well, my approach was all of the above.
Tim Lineaweaver (00:07:03):
I grew up in an environment that,
Tim Lineaweaver (00:07:06):
you know,
Tim Lineaweaver (00:07:06):
as you touched on earlier,
Tim Lineaweaver (00:07:08):
it wasn't really about being a sober person.
Tim Lineaweaver (00:07:12):
Alcoholic home.
Tim Lineaweaver (00:07:13):
I hung out with, you know, in the bars.
Tim Lineaweaver (00:07:16):
I was involved in dealing cocaine.
Tim Lineaweaver (00:07:19):
The idea of going to therapy was really kind of radical.
Tim Lineaweaver (00:07:22):
Yeah.
Tim Lineaweaver (00:07:23):
But I was desperate.
Tim Lineaweaver (00:07:24):
Or I actually went to treatment.
Tim Lineaweaver (00:07:26):
She kept encouraging, you need to go to treatment, you need to do more for your recovery.
Tim Lineaweaver (00:07:29):
I'm like, no, I don't think I need to.
Tim Lineaweaver (00:07:31):
And I would relapse and so on.
Tim Lineaweaver (00:07:33):
So I went to treatment.
Tim Lineaweaver (00:07:35):
In those days, it was sort of the Minnesota model.
Tim Lineaweaver (00:07:38):
You detox and then do 30 days.
Tim Lineaweaver (00:07:40):
I came home.
Tim Lineaweaver (00:07:41):
I did therapy, individual therapy with her.
Tim Lineaweaver (00:07:43):
I did group therapy.
Tim Lineaweaver (00:07:46):
And I did AA and NA.
Tim Lineaweaver (00:07:48):
There was a little NA meeting that I went to.
Tim Lineaweaver (00:07:51):
It was just sort of beginning.
Tim Lineaweaver (00:07:53):
It wasn't as big as it was now.
Tim Lineaweaver (00:07:56):
And I did a ton of meetings.
Tim Lineaweaver (00:07:58):
I did group therapy bit by bit.
Tim Lineaweaver (00:08:01):
The trauma stuff kind of leaked out to my therapist as I got more comfortable talking to her.
Tim Lineaweaver (00:08:07):
I just kind of loaded myself up with support.
Tim Lineaweaver (00:08:11):
One way I like to tell it is when I was in treatment after like two,
Tim Lineaweaver (00:08:15):
two and a half,
Tim Lineaweaver (00:08:16):
three weeks,
Tim Lineaweaver (00:08:16):
I was like,
Tim Lineaweaver (00:08:17):
if I could just stay here the rest of my life,
Tim Lineaweaver (00:08:20):
I think I could be so easy.
Tim Lineaweaver (00:08:24):
But I had a secondary thought, which was, okay, what is making me feel that way?
Tim Lineaweaver (00:08:28):
Well, individual therapy, group therapy, meetings, you know, so structured.
Tim Lineaweaver (00:08:33):
I did a ton of meetings for like three, three and a half, four years.
Tim Lineaweaver (00:08:37):
And I did therapy for even longer than that.
Tim Lineaweaver (00:08:41):
And it paid off.
Rachel Casey (00:08:42):
especially the trauma of growing up with an, in an alcoholic home.
Rachel Casey (00:08:46):
Cause I had two alcoholic parents.
Rachel Casey (00:08:48):
I still haven't been able to go to adult children's.
Rachel Casey (00:08:51):
I will,
Rachel Casey (00:08:52):
I've been to like three meetings and they wreck me so hard that even my therapist
Rachel Casey (00:08:57):
is like,
Rachel Casey (00:08:58):
let's just not push that yet because we're not there yet.
Rachel Casey (00:09:02):
Like the very first chapter,
Rachel Casey (00:09:03):
the idea of like,
Rachel Casey (00:09:04):
you didn't know what kind of home we were going to come home to.
Rachel Casey (00:09:06):
Was it a mad drunk?
Rachel Casey (00:09:07):
Was it a sad drunk?
Rachel Casey (00:09:08):
Was it a happy and that hypervigilance?
Rachel Casey (00:09:12):
lives with me still i can relate to that yeah certainly i am in school i only had a
Rachel Casey (00:09:18):
high school diploma too when i got sober and i've gone back to school originally
Rachel Casey (00:09:22):
was like yeah i'm gonna be a counselor addiction counselor with one-on-one and i've
Rachel Casey (00:09:27):
kind of leaned back a little bit how do you separate your recovery from helping
Tim Lineaweaver (00:09:33):
others with their trauma it can be tough i don't believe that there's only one way
Tim Lineaweaver (00:09:38):
to get clean and sober
Rachel Casey (00:09:39):
I don't either.
Tim Lineaweaver (00:09:40):
A lot of people take different paths than the one I took.
Tim Lineaweaver (00:09:43):
And my thing is at the end of the day, okay, if you're sober, then you're in recovery.
Tim Lineaweaver (00:09:48):
Good for you.
Tim Lineaweaver (00:09:49):
And however that works for you, it works.
Tim Lineaweaver (00:09:52):
So we don't need to stress about it.
Tim Lineaweaver (00:09:54):
Having said that,
Tim Lineaweaver (00:09:55):
I think that one typical mistake that I made and that other newly people who want
Tim Lineaweaver (00:10:00):
to be sober make is
Tim Lineaweaver (00:10:02):
They don't do enough to really support themselves.
Tim Lineaweaver (00:10:06):
And it can be kind of like throwing a wet sponge at a thick concrete wall and
Tim Lineaweaver (00:10:11):
expecting it to tumble over.
Tim Lineaweaver (00:10:13):
You need a sledgehammer for that thing.
Tim Lineaweaver (00:10:15):
Yes, that can be frustrating.
Tim Lineaweaver (00:10:17):
But there's also, nowadays, I think, treatment is better and more refined.
Tim Lineaweaver (00:10:24):
And there are ways of...
Tim Lineaweaver (00:10:27):
of working with people where they can,
Tim Lineaweaver (00:10:31):
you know,
Tim Lineaweaver (00:10:32):
you sort of see where they're at and then you counsel them accordingly.
Tim Lineaweaver (00:10:37):
Sometimes people arrive at my door and they're really ready to change.
Tim Lineaweaver (00:10:41):
They're really to embrace it and go.
Tim Lineaweaver (00:10:43):
And other times,
Tim Lineaweaver (00:10:44):
you know,
Tim Lineaweaver (00:10:44):
maybe their husband or wife or girlfriend,
Tim Lineaweaver (00:10:47):
boyfriend has directed them,
Tim Lineaweaver (00:10:49):
you know,
Tim Lineaweaver (00:10:49):
you need to go get therapy.
Tim Lineaweaver (00:10:51):
So I just try to have a broad approach to people.
Tim Lineaweaver (00:10:55):
and meet wherever they are on their journey so far kind of thing and then help them
Tim Lineaweaver (00:11:02):
accordingly.
Rachel Casey (00:11:03):
And this is going to sound probably a little silly,
Rachel Casey (00:11:04):
but I recently watched ER after Loving the Pit.
Rachel Casey (00:11:08):
And I see one of the characters after five years relapses and she has these chronic
Rachel Casey (00:11:14):
relapses,
Rachel Casey (00:11:15):
some worse than others.
Rachel Casey (00:11:17):
And I thought to myself,
Rachel Casey (00:11:19):
how as a counselor would I be able to,
Rachel Casey (00:11:22):
you know,
Rachel Casey (00:11:22):
watch someone relapse and try and convince me that,
Rachel Casey (00:11:25):
you know,
Rachel Casey (00:11:25):
oh,
Rachel Casey (00:11:25):
they're not alcoholic anymore.
Rachel Casey (00:11:27):
And this is only through a TV show.
Rachel Casey (00:11:28):
So I was wondering how that works when you're working with someone who's like in front of you.
Tim Lineaweaver (00:11:33):
Well, it certainly can be painful.
Tim Lineaweaver (00:11:35):
And I've seen people relapse who've had many years of sobriety,
Tim Lineaweaver (00:11:41):
and sometimes it's difficult for them to get back for whatever reason.
Tim Lineaweaver (00:11:45):
I certainly would tell you that it can be really painful for me to see that,
Tim Lineaweaver (00:11:50):
experience it,
Tim Lineaweaver (00:11:51):
because usually by the time something like that happens,
Tim Lineaweaver (00:11:56):
I've been with somebody for a while.
Tim Lineaweaver (00:11:58):
And so it's
Rachel Casey (00:11:59):
And it's not immediate that it falls apart.
Rachel Casey (00:12:02):
So maybe you can even speak to that because I think people don't hear that enough
Rachel Casey (00:12:06):
that you think,
Rachel Casey (00:12:07):
oh,
Rachel Casey (00:12:08):
I could go back and you try,
Rachel Casey (00:12:10):
but it's not like your life will instantly fall apart.
Rachel Casey (00:12:13):
But typically,
Rachel Casey (00:12:15):
if you're alcoholic,
Rachel Casey (00:12:15):
at least like me,
Rachel Casey (00:12:16):
I know I'll end up back right where I started,
Rachel Casey (00:12:19):
if not worse.
Tim Lineaweaver (00:12:20):
The first step talks about powerlessness over your substance.
Tim Lineaweaver (00:12:24):
And for me, I take that step every day.
Tim Lineaweaver (00:12:28):
I think about it.
Tim Lineaweaver (00:12:29):
I wake up into my day and I just do a quick kind of ask of myself, am I still powerless today?
Tim Lineaweaver (00:12:35):
Yeah.
Tim Lineaweaver (00:12:36):
Yep.
Tim Lineaweaver (00:12:36):
And the idea behind that for me is just that if I am powerless,
Tim Lineaweaver (00:12:40):
it means that whatever the problems were what I was using before,
Tim Lineaweaver (00:12:45):
if you want to roll the dice again,
Tim Lineaweaver (00:12:48):
bad things are going to happen.
Tim Lineaweaver (00:12:49):
And not only that, I ask myself, are you happy with your life today?
Tim Lineaweaver (00:12:53):
And the answer to that would be yes.
Tim Lineaweaver (00:12:54):
I feel blessed and grateful and grateful.
Tim Lineaweaver (00:12:58):
I also try to encourage people to kind of think along the same lines.
Tim Lineaweaver (00:13:03):
If you don't like the word powerless, that's okay.
Tim Lineaweaver (00:13:05):
Think of something else.
Tim Lineaweaver (00:13:06):
I have problems when I drink or use.
Tim Lineaweaver (00:13:10):
It doesn't have to be, you're an addict, you're an alcoholic, you're powerless.
Tim Lineaweaver (00:13:14):
If you want to use those terms, that's fine.
Tim Lineaweaver (00:13:17):
I was sort of raised up in AA where those terms were strictly used and
Tim Lineaweaver (00:13:23):
So I use them.
Tim Lineaweaver (00:13:24):
But it's important,
Tim Lineaweaver (00:13:26):
I think,
Tim Lineaweaver (00:13:26):
to just remember feeling when I had gone to my daughter's christening back in 1984
Tim Lineaweaver (00:13:33):
in August.
Tim Lineaweaver (00:13:34):
I ended up in a blackout.
Tim Lineaweaver (00:13:36):
I behaved horribly.
Tim Lineaweaver (00:13:38):
I can tell you the details if you want them, but just trust me on that.
Tim Lineaweaver (00:13:42):
And I woke up the next day and I felt so deeply in despair and lost.
Tim Lineaweaver (00:13:49):
It was kind of my come to Jesus moment with myself.
Tim Lineaweaver (00:13:52):
I was like, Tim, you don't have an idea of how to live a decent life.
Tim Lineaweaver (00:13:57):
You need help and you probably need more help than you've been giving yourself.
Tim Lineaweaver (00:14:01):
So I picked up the phone and I called my therapist and I said, I need help.
Tim Lineaweaver (00:14:06):
I need to go to treatment.
Tim Lineaweaver (00:14:07):
And she was like, oh, I'm so glad.
Tim Lineaweaver (00:14:10):
And she said, don't go anywhere.
Tim Lineaweaver (00:14:12):
I'm going to call you back.
Tim Lineaweaver (00:14:13):
And she called me back and said,
Tim Lineaweaver (00:14:15):
found you a bed in treatment in a good place,
Tim Lineaweaver (00:14:18):
but you have to wait till Thursday.
Tim Lineaweaver (00:14:20):
It was like Sunday morning.
Tim Lineaweaver (00:14:21):
A few days later, I packed up my gear and off I went.
Tim Lineaweaver (00:14:25):
I feel like that treatment still pays dividends to this day.
Rachel Casey (00:14:29):
That's a great way to look at it.
Rachel Casey (00:14:30):
I love that.
Rachel Casey (00:14:31):
For your work-wise,
Rachel Casey (00:14:32):
do you kind of say like you focus in trauma addiction and do you see that those two
Rachel Casey (00:14:39):
almost always intertwine or?
Tim Lineaweaver (00:14:40):
A high percentage of the time.
Tim Lineaweaver (00:14:43):
And you can,
Tim Lineaweaver (00:14:43):
if you look at statistics,
Tim Lineaweaver (00:14:45):
you see different stuff,
Tim Lineaweaver (00:14:46):
but all of it is mostly above 50%,
Tim Lineaweaver (00:14:49):
70%.
Tim Lineaweaver (00:14:52):
And the other thing about that is that those statistics may not be as high as they
Tim Lineaweaver (00:14:58):
might be because some people just don't even want to talk about Trump.
Tim Lineaweaver (00:15:01):
And I was like that in the beginning, like, I'm not talking about that stuff.
Tim Lineaweaver (00:15:05):
I'm not telling anybody.
Tim Lineaweaver (00:15:07):
I'm actually writing a book now,
Tim Lineaweaver (00:15:08):
and I've been working on a chapter that was sort of pivotal in my life,
Tim Lineaweaver (00:15:13):
and it details an incident of sexual abuse that I suffered.
Tim Lineaweaver (00:15:19):
When that happened, I said to myself, I am never telling anybody about this ever again.
Tim Lineaweaver (00:15:26):
I'm putting it in a box and I'm taking that box and putting it in another box and
Tim Lineaweaver (00:15:31):
I'm going to chain it up and I'm going to throw it away.
Tim Lineaweaver (00:15:34):
And I did.
Tim Lineaweaver (00:15:35):
until I was probably about 29 or 30.
Tim Lineaweaver (00:15:39):
And then I was sitting in group therapy and the topic became about sexual abuse.
Tim Lineaweaver (00:15:46):
And I just sort of blurted out that it happened to me as well.
Tim Lineaweaver (00:15:49):
That was so finally,
Tim Lineaweaver (00:15:52):
you know,
Tim Lineaweaver (00:15:52):
it happened when I was pretty young and it took,
Tim Lineaweaver (00:15:56):
you know,
Tim Lineaweaver (00:15:56):
two decades or more for me to be able to talk about it.
Tim Lineaweaver (00:16:00):
I think that therapeutically,
Tim Lineaweaver (00:16:02):
you have to be cautious about working with people on their trauma.
Tim Lineaweaver (00:16:05):
It's sort of like what you were saying, like sometimes it's a little early.
Tim Lineaweaver (00:16:08):
You know, what's the main thing right now?
Tim Lineaweaver (00:16:10):
Well, the main thing is that we keep sober, stabilize your life.
Tim Lineaweaver (00:16:15):
And when we're ready, you know, there's no rush on that.
Tim Lineaweaver (00:16:18):
Then we can start to deal with that as well.
Tim Lineaweaver (00:16:20):
And so for me, kind of my traumatic experience trickles out over time.
Rachel Casey (00:16:27):
As I sponsored, I've been sponsored.
Rachel Casey (00:16:30):
I went through the steps.
Rachel Casey (00:16:32):
Yep.
Rachel Casey (00:16:32):
At least in the beginning for me,
Rachel Casey (00:16:34):
I thought I'm not going to need a therapist after because it was so encouraging
Rachel Casey (00:16:38):
that the steps will fix your life.
Rachel Casey (00:16:39):
Everything's fixable as long as you work the steps and you stay dedicated.
Rachel Casey (00:16:42):
And I was that way.
Rachel Casey (00:16:44):
I don't know if you worked as a sponsor or sponsee,
Rachel Casey (00:16:47):
but I've seen sponsors try and take on things that really should be left to a
Rachel Casey (00:16:51):
therapist.
Rachel Casey (00:16:52):
But you can't tell anyone anything.
Rachel Casey (00:16:54):
You can't, there's no rules.
Rachel Casey (00:16:55):
There's no,
Rachel Casey (00:16:55):
and you just see it and you're like,
Rachel Casey (00:16:57):
man,
Rachel Casey (00:16:57):
that guy does not seem like he's qualified to give that kind of advice,
Rachel Casey (00:17:02):
you know?
Tim Lineaweaver (00:17:03):
I was lucky my sponsor kind of drew a line between demarcation of what he felt
Tim Lineaweaver (00:17:11):
helped me with and the other stuff.
Tim Lineaweaver (00:17:13):
You know, I never felt like my therapist and my sponsor had crossed purposes and I'm confused.
Tim Lineaweaver (00:17:19):
It was always pretty clear cut.
Tim Lineaweaver (00:17:20):
And I think you're right.
Tim Lineaweaver (00:17:21):
I think,
Tim Lineaweaver (00:17:23):
you know,
Tim Lineaweaver (00:17:24):
AA,
Tim Lineaweaver (00:17:25):
NA,
Tim Lineaweaver (00:17:25):
Refuge Recovery,
Tim Lineaweaver (00:17:26):
there's so many great self-help,
Tim Lineaweaver (00:17:28):
smart recovery programs.
Rachel Casey (00:17:29):
And they're amazing.
Rachel Casey (00:17:30):
I'm not trying to knock that.
Tim Lineaweaver (00:17:32):
Absolutely.
Tim Lineaweaver (00:17:33):
I owe a huge debt to AA and NA.
Rachel Casey (00:17:35):
But I also owe a huge debt to my therapist who's now doing the deeper trauma work.
Tim Lineaweaver (00:17:42):
You know, you don't want somebody trying to deal with trauma that isn't highly trained.
Tim Lineaweaver (00:17:47):
You should be trained before you're dealing with that.
Tim Lineaweaver (00:17:51):
And the other thing is, you know, it's sort of like...
Tim Lineaweaver (00:17:53):
If you rip off the Band-Aid, you never know what could happen.
Tim Lineaweaver (00:17:57):
And I've seen some people just get overwhelmed and they go back out and start drinking.
Tim Lineaweaver (00:18:02):
So you don't want that to happen.
Rachel Casey (00:18:04):
What would you recommend to someone if they were working with a sponsor,
Rachel Casey (00:18:09):
an AA,
Rachel Casey (00:18:10):
and the Band-Aid gets ripped off and now they're like,
Rachel Casey (00:18:12):
yeah,
Rachel Casey (00:18:12):
I want to go drink.
Rachel Casey (00:18:13):
What would you recommend the steps that they do instead of going to drink?
Tim Lineaweaver (00:18:18):
Finally.
Tim Lineaweaver (00:18:18):
therapist yes find a trauma you know sometimes like my my therapist wasn't you know
Tim Lineaweaver (00:18:24):
formally trauma informed i mean but that's one type of person you could look for it
Tim Lineaweaver (00:18:29):
really has the experience but she was really gifted and empathetic and
Tim Lineaweaver (00:18:34):
non-judgmental and she knew she had this knack for when to push and when to sort of
Tim Lineaweaver (00:18:40):
you know comfort and but i think you know if if
Tim Lineaweaver (00:18:44):
Be careful with a sponsor that's really trying to push too hard on the trauma.
Rachel Casey (00:18:50):
Well,
Rachel Casey (00:18:50):
you can just feel very vulnerable,
Rachel Casey (00:18:51):
you know,
Rachel Casey (00:18:52):
because you're newly sober and now you're trying to get what this person has.
Rachel Casey (00:18:57):
And there is a huge vulnerability that.
Rachel Casey (00:19:01):
Absolutely.
Tim Lineaweaver (00:19:02):
Absolutely.
Tim Lineaweaver (00:19:03):
You're vulnerable and your primary coping strategy, which is substance, has been removed.
Tim Lineaweaver (00:19:11):
You don't yet have maybe the coping skills that you'll get over time to deal with
Tim Lineaweaver (00:19:17):
the intensity of your feeling.
Tim Lineaweaver (00:19:18):
My first year of recovery was really emotional.
Tim Lineaweaver (00:19:22):
I had a lot of anger.
Tim Lineaweaver (00:19:23):
I had a lot of sadness and depression and a lot of guilt and shame and remorse,
Tim Lineaweaver (00:19:29):
you know,
Tim Lineaweaver (00:19:30):
all that stuff.
Tim Lineaweaver (00:19:31):
And that's why I needed to support myself as heavily as I did.
Tim Lineaweaver (00:19:35):
And again, you know, my therapist was a very big piece of it.
Rachel Casey (00:19:38):
So how did you decide that you wanted to go into trauma and how long did it take
Rachel Casey (00:19:44):
you to get your degree?
Tim Lineaweaver (00:19:45):
What I did was I gave myself two years and I got sober and sort of got stable.
Tim Lineaweaver (00:19:50):
I'm like, okay, I'm going back to school.
Tim Lineaweaver (00:19:52):
Now, when I was a kid, I was a terrible student.
Tim Lineaweaver (00:19:55):
School made me feel like anxious.
Tim Lineaweaver (00:19:57):
It was a place where there were too many people,
Tim Lineaweaver (00:19:59):
too many rules,
Tim Lineaweaver (00:20:00):
too many opportunities to mess up and not do well.
Tim Lineaweaver (00:20:04):
I had tried college two times before and just dropped out.
Tim Lineaweaver (00:20:08):
And I said to myself, I'm going to get my bachelor's degree or I'm going to die trying.
Tim Lineaweaver (00:20:14):
So I went back to a small community college when I was 30.
Tim Lineaweaver (00:20:19):
So I was two years sober.
Tim Lineaweaver (00:20:22):
I took just like one course.
Tim Lineaweaver (00:20:25):
And then the next semester I took two and then I got up to four.
Tim Lineaweaver (00:20:29):
But the challenge was I was still working.
Tim Lineaweaver (00:20:33):
Full time.
Tim Lineaweaver (00:20:33):
I had my daughter on weekends.
Tim Lineaweaver (00:20:35):
I had sort of reestablished that.
Tim Lineaweaver (00:20:38):
And I was going to school pretty much full time.
Tim Lineaweaver (00:20:40):
It took me like four and a half years to get through undergrad.
Tim Lineaweaver (00:20:44):
I was working at a restaurant in Boston, going to UMass Boston.
Tim Lineaweaver (00:20:47):
And I would, on Sunday, I would work a double shift.
Tim Lineaweaver (00:20:51):
So I'd be working at the restaurant from 9 a.m.
Tim Lineaweaver (00:20:55):
until 2 in the morning.
Tim Lineaweaver (00:20:57):
I would go home, get home around three, fall asleep, get up at nine, go to my classes.
Tim Lineaweaver (00:21:04):
And then that night, that following night, I would work again.
Tim Lineaweaver (00:21:07):
So it was just a really crazy, challenging thing, but best experience.
Tim Lineaweaver (00:21:14):
It was amazing.
Tim Lineaweaver (00:21:15):
I was doing it for me.
Tim Lineaweaver (00:21:16):
I wasn't doing it because everybody else thought I should go to college.
Tim Lineaweaver (00:21:20):
I was doing it for me.
Tim Lineaweaver (00:21:21):
I was an English major with a psychology minor, and I took a creative writing certificate.
Tim Lineaweaver (00:21:30):
And so it took me about four and a half years.
Tim Lineaweaver (00:21:34):
Then I took a year off and slept.
Tim Lineaweaver (00:21:37):
And then I went to graduate school after that.
Tim Lineaweaver (00:21:40):
That was another three years.
Rachel Casey (00:21:42):
I think I'm about on that pace right now is that,
Rachel Casey (00:21:45):
and now I'm in year two and I'm halfway through by trying to get my undergrad.
Rachel Casey (00:21:50):
And it's just, I try to give myself grace though.
Rachel Casey (00:21:53):
I'm like, it's hard.
Tim Lineaweaver (00:21:55):
Give yourself grace because you know, it's, it's hard.
Rachel Casey (00:21:58):
And recovery.
Tim Lineaweaver (00:21:59):
It is.
Tim Lineaweaver (00:21:59):
And, and be in recovery.
Tim Lineaweaver (00:22:01):
Exactly.
Tim Lineaweaver (00:22:01):
Exactly.
Rachel Casey (00:22:02):
That can sometimes be its own job.
Tim Lineaweaver (00:22:04):
Yeah, totally.
Rachel Casey (00:22:06):
So you were sober bartending.
Tim Lineaweaver (00:22:09):
I was.
Tim Lineaweaver (00:22:09):
I had child support and I was broke and I had a lot of debt.
Tim Lineaweaver (00:22:13):
And it's the only skill that I knew that I had where I could earn the kind of money
Tim Lineaweaver (00:22:19):
to kind of keep everything afloat,
Tim Lineaweaver (00:22:21):
just barely.
Tim Lineaweaver (00:22:22):
I had no health insurance.
Tim Lineaweaver (00:22:24):
I was just like, I was struggling.
Tim Lineaweaver (00:22:26):
And I wouldn't make that suggestion to anybody else.
Tim Lineaweaver (00:22:29):
I was trying to be sober bartending.
Rachel Casey (00:22:31):
I know a lot of people now, though, like it is very common.
Rachel Casey (00:22:34):
I think employers like hiring sober bartenders because they know they won't steal the liquor.
Tim Lineaweaver (00:22:39):
Exactly.
Rachel Casey (00:22:40):
When I left serving,
Rachel Casey (00:22:41):
I couldn't stop shaking and I couldn't carry a glass of alcohol without just
Rachel Casey (00:22:47):
trembling.
Rachel Casey (00:22:48):
That was the problem at the time.
Rachel Casey (00:22:49):
It's not my drinking.
Rachel Casey (00:22:50):
It's that I would have to take like two or three shots to get the shakes to go away.
Rachel Casey (00:22:56):
After I had my son, like it was so bad.
Rachel Casey (00:22:59):
And so it's really impressive that you made it through.
Rachel Casey (00:23:01):
I don't know how,
Rachel Casey (00:23:03):
if other people struggle with it,
Rachel Casey (00:23:04):
but I do know there are a ton of sober bartenders.
Tim Lineaweaver (00:23:07):
There are one thing about it is I would, I would see something happening.
Tim Lineaweaver (00:23:11):
I'd be like,
Tim Lineaweaver (00:23:12):
Yep, that's me.
Tim Lineaweaver (00:23:13):
If I was drinking, you know, that kind of thing, like, oh, my God.
Tim Lineaweaver (00:23:17):
So it was sort of a cautionary tale.
Tim Lineaweaver (00:23:19):
And I was really excited when I left it,
Tim Lineaweaver (00:23:22):
though,
Tim Lineaweaver (00:23:22):
because I had,
Tim Lineaweaver (00:23:23):
you know,
Tim Lineaweaver (00:23:23):
when I was young and drinking and really exciting and fun,
Tim Lineaweaver (00:23:28):
like that's where the party was.
Tim Lineaweaver (00:23:30):
But then it got really old for me.
Rachel Casey (00:23:32):
Yeah.
Rachel Casey (00:23:32):
For anyone listening, what do people most often misunderstand about trauma and recovery?
Tim Lineaweaver (00:23:39):
Well,
Tim Lineaweaver (00:23:39):
I think people that don't have trauma and recovery don't understand that trauma
Tim Lineaweaver (00:23:43):
often drives recovery.
Tim Lineaweaver (00:23:45):
Like, and we were talking about earlier, you know, high percentage of the time.
Tim Lineaweaver (00:23:49):
And there's a lot of judgment around that.
Tim Lineaweaver (00:23:51):
Like, you know, oh, look at that drunk or look at that junkie.
Tim Lineaweaver (00:23:55):
I think that that type of,
Tim Lineaweaver (00:23:57):
those types of thoughts and kind of ways of labeling people ignore the fact that
Tim Lineaweaver (00:24:04):
practically every addict or alcoholic
Tim Lineaweaver (00:24:08):
Or a person with substance use disorders is that's being driven by trauma that is
Tim Lineaweaver (00:24:16):
painful and difficult.
Tim Lineaweaver (00:24:18):
And those people deserve our respect.
Tim Lineaweaver (00:24:22):
When somebody gets clean and sober,
Tim Lineaweaver (00:24:25):
we're really restoring them to the person that they were meant to be and the person
Tim Lineaweaver (00:24:30):
that they could be.
Tim Lineaweaver (00:24:31):
And as you've touched on earlier, those people make the best employees.
Tim Lineaweaver (00:24:37):
They show up on time.
Tim Lineaweaver (00:24:39):
They kill it.
Tim Lineaweaver (00:24:41):
They're smart.
Tim Lineaweaver (00:24:41):
They are empathetic.
Tim Lineaweaver (00:24:44):
We need to really work with people and help them forward in the same way that I was helped.
Tim Lineaweaver (00:24:49):
And I assume in the same way that you've been helped as well.
Rachel Casey (00:24:52):
Absolutely.
Rachel Casey (00:24:53):
I think that was one thing I really related heavily to Bill W,
Rachel Casey (00:24:57):
that near the end,
Rachel Casey (00:24:58):
he was trying to find a way to help those people with so much trauma that they
Rachel Casey (00:25:04):
can't get out,
Rachel Casey (00:25:05):
just didn't have that moment of that look in the mirror,
Rachel Casey (00:25:10):
the...
Rachel Casey (00:25:11):
Who am I?
Rachel Casey (00:25:11):
Because the trauma is so heavy.
Rachel Casey (00:25:13):
It's like, how can we get people to a point to where we can get them to see the disease talking?
Rachel Casey (00:25:22):
And it's so hard that you can't force it on anyone.
Rachel Casey (00:25:26):
Because if you could, I'm sure there's lots of people that would.
Tim Lineaweaver (00:25:30):
Yes.
Tim Lineaweaver (00:25:30):
Well,
Tim Lineaweaver (00:25:31):
I think one thing that I try to do,
Tim Lineaweaver (00:25:34):
send a message to clients and other people that are trying to be in recovery and
Tim Lineaweaver (00:25:39):
dealing with trauma that you can deal with it with both the trauma and the
Tim Lineaweaver (00:25:44):
addictions.
Tim Lineaweaver (00:25:45):
A lot of times, sometimes as therapists, we kind of use the scare stuff too much.
Tim Lineaweaver (00:25:50):
Like, oh my God, if you relapse, you're going to...
Tim Lineaweaver (00:25:53):
These terrible things are going to happen.
Tim Lineaweaver (00:25:55):
And, you know, there's truth in that.
Tim Lineaweaver (00:25:58):
But the other thing that we need to send a message is if you deal with your
Tim Lineaweaver (00:26:02):
addictions and then you deal with your trauma,
Tim Lineaweaver (00:26:06):
your life is going to get so much better.
Tim Lineaweaver (00:26:08):
I tell people I've never had anybody who's gotten into recovery and stayed there
Tim Lineaweaver (00:26:15):
and sort of dealt with all their stuff come back to me and say,
Tim Lineaweaver (00:26:19):
you lied.
Tim Lineaweaver (00:26:20):
Yeah, no one.
Tim Lineaweaver (00:26:22):
This is awful.
Tim Lineaweaver (00:26:23):
It's like no good.
Tim Lineaweaver (00:26:24):
I'm going back out there and I'm drinking because you just don't hear that.
Tim Lineaweaver (00:26:28):
You hear people are grateful that they're
Tim Lineaweaver (00:26:31):
able to reach their potential where before they they were stuck and and struggling
Tim Lineaweaver (00:26:36):
and they they achieve independence and happiness and good relations there's just so
Rachel Casey (00:26:41):
much good stuff there so i think i heard someone say they were like the liquor
Rachel Casey (00:26:46):
store will always be open tomorrow if i'm so wrong right i've never met one person
Rachel Casey (00:26:51):
in recovery that was like being sober was the worst it's always like i'm so
Rachel Casey (00:26:57):
grateful i didn't
Rachel Casey (00:26:59):
go drink alcoholically.
Rachel Casey (00:27:00):
It's a very,
Rachel Casey (00:27:02):
that was one thing that is also convincing that I wanted to go work in the recovery
Rachel Casey (00:27:08):
addiction world is it is a very rewarding field that you're like,
Rachel Casey (00:27:12):
once you see someone that you were able to help pull out just like you,
Rachel Casey (00:27:16):
cause I know it's like being in it.
Rachel Casey (00:27:18):
So I know the misery and it's like helping others come out of that.
Rachel Casey (00:27:23):
But like my, my dad was,
Rachel Casey (00:27:26):
does not want help.
Rachel Casey (00:27:27):
He, I mean, he's miserable, but he will also claim he doesn't want to change it.
Rachel Casey (00:27:34):
He wants to stay.
Rachel Casey (00:27:35):
He has no desire to do anything about it.
Rachel Casey (00:27:38):
So it's like, if you change your mind, I'm here.
Rachel Casey (00:27:42):
But so how have you seen it changed too?
Rachel Casey (00:27:45):
Because for decades, not only are you working in the field, you're in recovery yourself.
Rachel Casey (00:27:50):
What have you seen change the most?
Tim Lineaweaver (00:27:52):
The treatment field, I think treatment is a lot more effective and various.
Tim Lineaweaver (00:27:57):
In other words, there's a lot different kind of modes of treatment that you can access.
Tim Lineaweaver (00:28:03):
There's, you know, PHP programs, there's IOP programs.
Tim Lineaweaver (00:28:09):
There are, I think, more therapists with expertise in addictions and trauma.
Tim Lineaweaver (00:28:14):
There's EMDR, there's, you know, tapping.
Tim Lineaweaver (00:28:17):
There's all kinds of different ways of dealing with stuff.
Rachel Casey (00:28:21):
What did you start out with?
Tim Lineaweaver (00:28:22):
Like talk therapy or... Yeah, I was just talk therapy with my therapist.
Tim Lineaweaver (00:28:27):
She was amazing though.
Tim Lineaweaver (00:28:29):
Like...
Tim Lineaweaver (00:28:31):
I remember my first day, I just walked in there and I was like, I can't believe I'm doing this.
Tim Lineaweaver (00:28:40):
What is this?
Tim Lineaweaver (00:28:41):
It was just so contrary to my life to actually go talk to a person about my problems.
Tim Lineaweaver (00:28:47):
You don't do that.
Tim Lineaweaver (00:28:48):
You just drink and just get hammered and that's how you cope.
Tim Lineaweaver (00:28:55):
She was just this very confident, self-possessed
Tim Lineaweaver (00:29:00):
woman but but in a way that wasn't like i can't talk to her you know it was like
Tim Lineaweaver (00:29:06):
and she was so um gifted and in terms of her empathy and i think if i had felt any
Tim Lineaweaver (00:29:13):
vibe of judgment or something like that i would have just left i'm not doing this
Tim Lineaweaver (00:29:20):
and
Tim Lineaweaver (00:29:20):
Something about her that just,
Tim Lineaweaver (00:29:22):
even though,
Tim Lineaweaver (00:29:24):
you know,
Tim Lineaweaver (00:29:24):
I was kind of fighting her on stuff,
Tim Lineaweaver (00:29:26):
I did keep going back and I was,
Tim Lineaweaver (00:29:28):
you know,
Tim Lineaweaver (00:29:29):
roughly honest.
Tim Lineaweaver (00:29:31):
And so it worked.
Tim Lineaweaver (00:29:32):
And, you know, nowadays I think there's a lot more available out there.
Tim Lineaweaver (00:29:36):
That's a good thing.
Tim Lineaweaver (00:29:37):
The bad thing, the other side of that, and I don't know how much you've talked about.
Rachel Casey (00:29:41):
What's the bad side?
Tim Lineaweaver (00:29:43):
There's a lot more money in treatment.
Tim Lineaweaver (00:29:45):
So there's more corruption.
Rachel Casey (00:29:47):
That's a, that's a good point.
Tim Lineaweaver (00:29:49):
You know,
Tim Lineaweaver (00:29:49):
this sort of we need heads in beds kind of mentality of just loading people into
Tim Lineaweaver (00:29:55):
treatment and then doing everything you can to hold them there,
Tim Lineaweaver (00:29:59):
to my mind,
Tim Lineaweaver (00:30:00):
is problematic and not good.
Rachel Casey (00:30:03):
Yeah.
Rachel Casey (00:30:04):
And I got to interview a therapist and the ethical challenge was with insurance,
Rachel Casey (00:30:10):
having someone who wants help,
Rachel Casey (00:30:13):
but they're like one day sober.
Rachel Casey (00:30:15):
So technically they won't qualify to get into treatment.
Rachel Casey (00:30:18):
And she said, it's really hard to be like...
Rachel Casey (00:30:21):
If you just like went and took a sip and came right back,
Rachel Casey (00:30:23):
we can get you in and be fully covered.
Rachel Casey (00:30:25):
But you don't you can't say that to an addict.
Rachel Casey (00:30:27):
You can't tell an addict, hey, just go relapse really quickly.
Rachel Casey (00:30:32):
You don't know that they'll come back.
Rachel Casey (00:30:33):
They might not have that same the way that things have to be worded or how things
Rachel Casey (00:30:39):
are timed or how you answer a question.
Rachel Casey (00:30:41):
Even if it's not honest and the counselor knows it's not honest, that can shut down.
Rachel Casey (00:30:47):
a claim being covered or not covered.
Rachel Casey (00:30:50):
And she said it is a real ethical pull when you're sitting across from someone that
Rachel Casey (00:30:53):
you know needs help.
Rachel Casey (00:30:55):
And you're like, do I forge the document?
Rachel Casey (00:30:59):
Do I, you know, just do I tell them in that was the ethical battle she talked about.
Rachel Casey (00:31:05):
And that opened my eyes like, wow.
Tim Lineaweaver (00:31:08):
Yeah, I've worked on inpatient programs probably for about a third of my career.
Tim Lineaweaver (00:31:13):
It's really tough work,
Tim Lineaweaver (00:31:15):
really tough in a lot of different ways and for a lot of different reasons.
Tim Lineaweaver (00:31:19):
But I was working with a young person who had been in Florida recently.
Tim Lineaweaver (00:31:25):
And he told me that what he was doing was he was cycling in and out of treatment.
Tim Lineaweaver (00:31:33):
The treatment program would give him $1,000 if he would go to detox and stay for
Tim Lineaweaver (00:31:41):
whatever his insurance would cover.
Tim Lineaweaver (00:31:44):
And he had medical necessity, so he fit the criteria.
Tim Lineaweaver (00:31:48):
So he would go in.
Tim Lineaweaver (00:31:50):
come out, they'd give him a thousand dollars.
Tim Lineaweaver (00:31:52):
He would go on a run for like a week and then come back in,
Tim Lineaweaver (00:31:56):
get another thousand dollars and so on and so forth.
Tim Lineaweaver (00:32:00):
And I was just blown away by that.
Tim Lineaweaver (00:32:03):
Like, oh, my God.
Rachel Casey (00:32:04):
I mean, addicts are brilliant.
Rachel Casey (00:32:06):
I'm telling you, like, and I find a way, don't we?
Rachel Casey (00:32:09):
But the good news is,
Rachel Casey (00:32:10):
is if you're listening and you're not sober,
Rachel Casey (00:32:12):
like it is even more powerful in sobriety.
Rachel Casey (00:32:16):
And I think it's the magic that you see.
Rachel Casey (00:32:19):
If someone hears a recovered addict is here, someone needs help.
Rachel Casey (00:32:23):
It's the quickest phone call you'll ever get.
Rachel Casey (00:32:25):
We will stop everything down and be like, how can we help?
Rachel Casey (00:32:29):
Where are
Rachel Casey (00:32:30):
here's where we can tell you and if we're not available we immediately know 10
Rachel Casey (00:32:35):
other people that are and again if if this didn't work and being sober was really
Rachel Casey (00:32:41):
miserable that's not how it would go it would be hard to but everyone who has been
Rachel Casey (00:32:47):
in an addiction and then is able to get to the other side is it's just not you
Rachel Casey (00:32:53):
can't see it until you're there
Tim Lineaweaver (00:32:55):
Yeah, you can't.
Tim Lineaweaver (00:32:56):
I was convinced that it was going to be a joyless black and white.
Tim Lineaweaver (00:33:01):
It's going to be miserable the rest of my life.
Tim Lineaweaver (00:33:04):
I have found that that is just so not true.
Tim Lineaweaver (00:33:07):
Life is full of joy.
Tim Lineaweaver (00:33:11):
I love to have the full kind of scope of my emotions.
Tim Lineaweaver (00:33:17):
Everything that recovery has given me, I'm so grateful for it.
Tim Lineaweaver (00:33:22):
And I think that's the core message for people.
Tim Lineaweaver (00:33:26):
You can do it if you really work at it.
Tim Lineaweaver (00:33:31):
And if you do it, you will be very happy and fulfilled.
Tim Lineaweaver (00:33:36):
And, you know, we just have to keep sending that message out there.
Rachel Casey (00:33:40):
Absolutely.
Rachel Casey (00:33:41):
And I think growing up in an alcoholic home because alcohol was very normal when I
Rachel Casey (00:33:47):
got sober,
Rachel Casey (00:33:48):
like it was so much around that I didn't think there was anywhere you couldn't have
Rachel Casey (00:33:53):
it,
Rachel Casey (00:33:54):
you know?
Rachel Casey (00:33:54):
So I was like, where am I going to go?
Rachel Casey (00:33:56):
What am I going to do?
Rachel Casey (00:33:57):
Like my entire life, there's always a drink around.
Rachel Casey (00:34:01):
And I've found in sobriety, number one, alcohol is not everywhere and it's not in my home.
Rachel Casey (00:34:07):
And
Rachel Casey (00:34:08):
While there might be a hard moment because I'm now changing my norm.
Rachel Casey (00:34:12):
I'm going from alcohol is my solution for pretty much everything to sobriety.
Rachel Casey (00:34:19):
And I had to find like meditation, be able to sit with it.
Rachel Casey (00:34:23):
And the feeling was very uncomfortable.
Rachel Casey (00:34:25):
Yeah.
Rachel Casey (00:34:26):
A lot of times, but there was never a time where, like you'd said, or wake up that day and
Rachel Casey (00:34:32):
I can do it for 24 hours.
Rachel Casey (00:34:34):
I've committed today that no matter what,
Rachel Casey (00:34:36):
no matter what happens,
Rachel Casey (00:34:38):
even if my worst case scenario happened,
Rachel Casey (00:34:40):
I will not drink today.
Rachel Casey (00:34:42):
As someone who's,
Rachel Casey (00:34:43):
again,
Rachel Casey (00:34:44):
just alcohol everywhere all the time,
Rachel Casey (00:34:47):
I kind of thought I was like breaking society,
Rachel Casey (00:34:51):
societal norms.
Rachel Casey (00:34:53):
I do still remember just from growing up in an alcoholic home,
Rachel Casey (00:34:57):
how normal it felt for 27 years of my life.
Tim Lineaweaver (00:35:01):
Yeah, I can relate to that.
Tim Lineaweaver (00:35:03):
I mean, alcohol in the house, alcohol was everywhere.
Tim Lineaweaver (00:35:06):
Everyone was drinking.
Tim Lineaweaver (00:35:07):
Yeah, it was our tea.
Tim Lineaweaver (00:35:09):
And it did seem like alcohol was everywhere.
Tim Lineaweaver (00:35:11):
And I also remember you touched on this when you were just talking about it.
Tim Lineaweaver (00:35:15):
But for me, like I would in those days, all my friends were alcoholics and drug addicts.
Tim Lineaweaver (00:35:22):
And I was very, you know, that was a very centered part of my life.
Tim Lineaweaver (00:35:28):
So I didn't I would go to a meeting and I'd be like.
Tim Lineaweaver (00:35:33):
This was like an oasis of these people understand me.
Tim Lineaweaver (00:35:38):
They understand what I need and I can get it here.
Tim Lineaweaver (00:35:43):
And so if I am craving or if I'm disturbed by something,
Tim Lineaweaver (00:35:47):
you know,
Tim Lineaweaver (00:35:49):
AANA,
Tim Lineaweaver (00:35:50):
and now there's a lot of other programs that work as well.
Tim Lineaweaver (00:35:53):
Any group of people.
Tim Lineaweaver (00:35:54):
Yes.
Rachel Casey (00:35:54):
That's like mine.
Tim Lineaweaver (00:35:55):
Fellowship, right?
Tim Lineaweaver (00:35:57):
Like this is, you know, sort of one of the antidotes to addictions.
Rachel Casey (00:36:02):
with the resources today which back when you got sober probably were not as
Rachel Casey (00:36:06):
available like the sources were pretty much a na or therapy or like treatment
Rachel Casey (00:36:14):
center but today like you can find a group
Rachel Casey (00:36:18):
pretty much anywhere online.
Rachel Casey (00:36:19):
You don't even have to go in person,
Rachel Casey (00:36:20):
but even in person,
Rachel Casey (00:36:21):
I mean,
Rachel Casey (00:36:22):
there's,
Rachel Casey (00:36:23):
there's so many just within my little circle.
Rachel Casey (00:36:26):
Um, and that's, that did really help me in the, the early days.
Rachel Casey (00:36:31):
Cause you start to, I start to forget anyway.
Rachel Casey (00:36:33):
So I can imagine after 40 years,
Rachel Casey (00:36:35):
you know,
Rachel Casey (00:36:35):
there's like,
Rachel Casey (00:36:36):
oh yeah,
Rachel Casey (00:36:36):
something I do remember being like
Rachel Casey (00:36:39):
triggered and having to go run to a meeting, which sounds crazy today.
Rachel Casey (00:36:42):
I am curious as we can kind of wrap up,
Rachel Casey (00:36:44):
but your kids,
Rachel Casey (00:36:45):
how does that work since some of them haven't seen you drink?
Rachel Casey (00:36:49):
What do you do?
Rachel Casey (00:36:49):
How do you talk to your kids about it?
Tim Lineaweaver (00:36:51):
Well, I wanted to talk to my kids about it because they have a genetic predisposition.
Tim Lineaweaver (00:36:59):
Alcoholism is very strong on my paternal side.
Tim Lineaweaver (00:37:02):
So my
Tim Lineaweaver (00:37:03):
grandfather, my father, my brother and I all have addictive issues.
Tim Lineaweaver (00:37:09):
And so it doesn't guarantee that they will develop addictions, but there is that predisposition.
Tim Lineaweaver (00:37:20):
And so I talked to them starting pretty young.
Tim Lineaweaver (00:37:24):
I tried not to be too heavy handed with it because if you just constantly...
Tim Lineaweaver (00:37:30):
push on kids, then they're more apt to go out and do the thing that you don't want them to do.
Tim Lineaweaver (00:37:36):
But I just said,
Tim Lineaweaver (00:37:37):
you know,
Tim Lineaweaver (00:37:37):
like as they got into their teen years,
Tim Lineaweaver (00:37:40):
you're going to start running into opportunities to drink or,
Tim Lineaweaver (00:37:45):
you know,
Tim Lineaweaver (00:37:46):
somebody might offer you a pill or a substance or powder.
Tim Lineaweaver (00:37:49):
And you need to be prepared for that.
Tim Lineaweaver (00:37:53):
And we need to talk about it.
Tim Lineaweaver (00:37:54):
You know,
Tim Lineaweaver (00:37:54):
I talked a lot about the difference between kind of responsible drinking versus,
Tim Lineaweaver (00:38:00):
you know,
Tim Lineaweaver (00:38:01):
going out to get kind of shattered and how that kind of abuse can lead to
Tim Lineaweaver (00:38:08):
dependence.
Tim Lineaweaver (00:38:09):
And so, so far, knock on wood, none of them have developed addictions.
Tim Lineaweaver (00:38:15):
The other difference for them was that,
Tim Lineaweaver (00:38:18):
you know,
Tim Lineaweaver (00:38:18):
they weren't traumatized in the same way that I was and that you were,
Tim Lineaweaver (00:38:22):
right?
Tim Lineaweaver (00:38:23):
So they don't have that driver.
Tim Lineaweaver (00:38:26):
And another thing I told them,
Tim Lineaweaver (00:38:28):
which I think was important,
Tim Lineaweaver (00:38:30):
was there are certain substances that you should never experiment.
Tim Lineaweaver (00:38:35):
Heroin and cocaine.
Rachel Casey (00:38:38):
say cocaine is so bad apparently like I didn't I've done it many times and I didn't
Rachel Casey (00:38:43):
know until I went to school how it'll never leave my dopamine in my brain like
Tim Lineaweaver (00:38:49):
it'll just that's forever gonna be there well that that was my experience like I
Tim Lineaweaver (00:38:54):
snorted cocaine got addicted that way but then when I smoked it within a year I
Tim Lineaweaver (00:39:00):
destroyed my life and so I tell them don't mess with those drugs you know and
Tim Lineaweaver (00:39:05):
And I also kind of left the door open.
Tim Lineaweaver (00:39:08):
You know,
Tim Lineaweaver (00:39:08):
if you guys want to talk about something,
Tim Lineaweaver (00:39:11):
I'm not going to punish you or get mad at you.
Tim Lineaweaver (00:39:14):
Let's talk and and really, you know, kind of determine what makes sense for you.
Tim Lineaweaver (00:39:20):
So far, so good.
Rachel Casey (00:39:22):
Genetically, each everyone in our family has addiction, like literally both sides.
Tim Lineaweaver (00:39:28):
I mean,
Tim Lineaweaver (00:39:28):
the,
Tim Lineaweaver (00:39:29):
the,
Tim Lineaweaver (00:39:29):
the not traumatizing your kids is a really great big first step in making sure that
Tim Lineaweaver (00:39:35):
they're parented,
Tim Lineaweaver (00:39:36):
you know,
Tim Lineaweaver (00:39:37):
better than we were.
Tim Lineaweaver (00:39:38):
And I, you know, my, I think my father's, I came in really caught parenting.
Tim Lineaweaver (00:39:43):
He was a lot like your dad just drank himself to death.
Tim Lineaweaver (00:39:46):
Didn't want help.
Tim Lineaweaver (00:39:47):
This is,
Tim Lineaweaver (00:39:48):
it's not happening,
Tim Lineaweaver (00:39:49):
but a lot of stuff that he did with me,
Tim Lineaweaver (00:39:52):
I was like,
Tim Lineaweaver (00:39:53):
okay,
Tim Lineaweaver (00:39:54):
I'm not doing that.
Tim Lineaweaver (00:39:55):
Cause that didn't help me at all.
Tim Lineaweaver (00:39:57):
You know?
Tim Lineaweaver (00:39:57):
Yeah.
Rachel Casey (00:39:57):
I have noticed,
Rachel Casey (00:39:58):
and this is where the forgiveness of being an addict and understanding the person
Rachel Casey (00:40:04):
and the disease is that there are some things that I know my dad was doing or my
Rachel Casey (00:40:09):
mom,
Rachel Casey (00:40:10):
because my mom drank my whole life too,
Rachel Casey (00:40:12):
that they were drinking.
Rachel Casey (00:40:13):
And there's no way they would have done those things had they not just been
Rachel Casey (00:40:19):
You know,
Rachel Casey (00:40:19):
had they been present,
Rachel Casey (00:40:21):
obviously I make mistakes as a parent,
Rachel Casey (00:40:22):
but like,
Rachel Casey (00:40:23):
not the kinds of things I grew up with.
Rachel Casey (00:40:25):
But that's only because it was fueled by alcohol.
Rachel Casey (00:40:27):
I think if my parents weren't sick,
Rachel Casey (00:40:30):
I don't think the extent of the things that happened would have happened,
Rachel Casey (00:40:34):
you know.
Tim Lineaweaver (00:40:35):
Yes.
Tim Lineaweaver (00:40:35):
And I think it's probably likely you tell me, but I know that my dad also had trauma.
Tim Lineaweaver (00:40:42):
I don't know the details of it,
Tim Lineaweaver (00:40:45):
but I know that his relationship with his father was really traumatic for him.
Tim Lineaweaver (00:40:50):
So I can think I get kind of bad about things my dad did, but I'm like, OK, he had trauma, too.
Tim Lineaweaver (00:40:57):
So, you know.
Rachel Casey (00:40:58):
And that's where I'm like, I'm not mad at him.
Rachel Casey (00:41:01):
Oh, one thing I've wanted to ask.
Tim Lineaweaver (00:41:04):
Yes.
Rachel Casey (00:41:05):
Do you still have like drinking dreams or have you had drinking dreams ever?
Rachel Casey (00:41:08):
Or what's that like even 40 years now?
Tim Lineaweaver (00:41:11):
I don't have them nearly as frequently as I used to, and they're kind of occurring dreams.
Tim Lineaweaver (00:41:17):
And in the dream,
Tim Lineaweaver (00:41:18):
I usually have some cocaine on me and some alcohol,
Tim Lineaweaver (00:41:24):
and I'm dealing with my wife or kids,
Tim Lineaweaver (00:41:27):
and I'm trying to get away from them so I can coke.
Rachel Casey (00:41:30):
Always trying to escape.
Rachel Casey (00:41:31):
That's always what my therapist is like, yep, trying to escape.
Tim Lineaweaver (00:41:33):
Trying to escape, trying to move the chess pieces around so I can do what I want to do.
Tim Lineaweaver (00:41:37):
And I'm thinking like, I haven't really been sober.
Tim Lineaweaver (00:41:41):
I've been lying all the time.
Tim Lineaweaver (00:41:43):
So there's this kind of guilt and remorse going along with it.
Tim Lineaweaver (00:41:47):
And I don't care because I just want to get high.
Tim Lineaweaver (00:41:50):
And then I wake up and I'm like,
Tim Lineaweaver (00:41:53):
Oh, wait.
Tim Lineaweaver (00:41:53):
Oh, my God, I'm sober.
Tim Lineaweaver (00:41:55):
Thank God.
Tim Lineaweaver (00:41:56):
So it's,
Tim Lineaweaver (00:41:57):
you know,
Tim Lineaweaver (00:41:58):
as unnerving as those dreams can be,
Tim Lineaweaver (00:42:02):
they kind of serve a purpose for me,
Tim Lineaweaver (00:42:03):
which is,
Tim Lineaweaver (00:42:05):
do you really want to go back to that kind of stuff?
Tim Lineaweaver (00:42:07):
No, I don't.
Tim Lineaweaver (00:42:08):
It's a tough dream to have, but, you know, maybe there's a silver lining there.
Rachel Casey (00:42:11):
yeah it's your repurpose of I'm not gonna take a drink today because that dream was
Rachel Casey (00:42:16):
not fun no it wasn't yeah my husband has drinking dreams I'm sober in all my dreams
Rachel Casey (00:42:21):
and I usually show my tattoo and I have the little AA symbol but I had them in
Rachel Casey (00:42:26):
early sobriety but I do have ones about being trapped I will tell you that is my
Rachel Casey (00:42:30):
theme I cannot escape and I'm scared and I'm trying to people please and I can't
Rachel Casey (00:42:35):
figure but it's usually I find my husband drinking and I don't do the whole dream
Rachel Casey (00:42:39):
theory but
Rachel Casey (00:42:40):
We got sober on the same day.
Rachel Casey (00:42:41):
So, I mean, we were both.
Tim Lineaweaver (00:42:42):
That's so cool.
Rachel Casey (00:42:44):
Who's going to cave first?
Rachel Casey (00:42:45):
Like he told me his whole goal in the beginning was he was going to outlast me
Rachel Casey (00:42:48):
because I'm the true alcoholic.
Rachel Casey (00:42:50):
And eventually Rachel's going to be like, let's go get Jameson.
Rachel Casey (00:42:53):
We both outlasted each other.
Tim Lineaweaver (00:42:55):
And you have the same sobriety day.
Tim Lineaweaver (00:42:57):
We do.
Tim Lineaweaver (00:42:58):
We do.
Tim Lineaweaver (00:42:59):
You do like a huge.
Tim Lineaweaver (00:43:01):
How do you celebrate?
Rachel Casey (00:43:02):
First year we went to a nice dinner.
Rachel Casey (00:43:04):
The second it's now we're coming.
Rachel Casey (00:43:05):
We've done three.
Rachel Casey (00:43:06):
We're coming up on four different each time.
Rachel Casey (00:43:08):
It's I mean, it's busy with Evan.
Tim Lineaweaver (00:43:10):
Yeah.
Tim Lineaweaver (00:43:11):
Cool.
Rachel Casey (00:43:11):
And it's Christmas.
Rachel Casey (00:43:12):
So we got sober the week of Thanksgiving, November 22nd of 21.
Rachel Casey (00:43:16):
Now, technically, my last drink was the 21st.
Rachel Casey (00:43:19):
His was the 22nd.
Rachel Casey (00:43:20):
But we say our sobriety dates the 22nd because we took our desire chips at that
Rachel Casey (00:43:26):
meeting at that 6 p.m.
Rachel Casey (00:43:27):
meeting.
Rachel Casey (00:43:28):
And so my sobriety dates, like when I took my desire chip, same for him.
Rachel Casey (00:43:31):
Um, but he did drink at his, on his lunch break that day.
Rachel Casey (00:43:36):
I stayed sober with the baby,
Rachel Casey (00:43:37):
um,
Rachel Casey (00:43:38):
promising my mom,
Rachel Casey (00:43:39):
I'd go this meeting and I'm like,
Rachel Casey (00:43:40):
it's not going to work.
Rachel Casey (00:43:41):
This is stupid.
Rachel Casey (00:43:42):
It's not my problem.
Rachel Casey (00:43:43):
I'm depressed.
Rachel Casey (00:43:45):
Uh,
Rachel Casey (00:43:45):
I don't drinking,
Rachel Casey (00:43:46):
you know,
Rachel Casey (00:43:46):
and I heard what I needed to hear in that meeting and haven't had a drink since.
Rachel Casey (00:43:50):
Thank God.
Tim Lineaweaver (00:43:51):
Um, right.
Rachel Casey (00:43:52):
So you're working on writing a book, a memoir.
Tim Lineaweaver (00:43:55):
Yep.
Tim Lineaweaver (00:43:56):
I'm kind of putting the final touches on it.
Tim Lineaweaver (00:43:59):
It's about my life and my family and growing up on Cape Cod back in the 1970s and
Tim Lineaweaver (00:44:07):
about my trauma,
Tim Lineaweaver (00:44:08):
about my recovery.
Tim Lineaweaver (00:44:10):
And I'm looking for a publisher.
Tim Lineaweaver (00:44:11):
So if there's anybody out there that wants a good book on addictions,
Tim Lineaweaver (00:44:15):
call me up,
Tim Lineaweaver (00:44:16):
email me,
Tim Lineaweaver (00:44:16):
something.
Rachel Casey (00:44:17):
Yeah, there's quite a few authors I've had.
Rachel Casey (00:44:19):
So that would be very likely that if any one of even people,
Rachel Casey (00:44:23):
guests,
Rachel Casey (00:44:23):
previous guests,
Rachel Casey (00:44:25):
since all of the people I've talked to are addiction memoirs,
Rachel Casey (00:44:29):
please.
Rachel Casey (00:44:29):
So Tim,
Rachel Casey (00:44:30):
and the great way to get ahold of you through Substack,
Rachel Casey (00:44:33):
that's where you're doing your current writing.
Tim Lineaweaver (00:44:35):
Yep.
Rachel Casey (00:44:36):
Any other ways?
Tim Lineaweaver (00:44:36):
Email me at tnt410 at aol.com.
Rachel Casey (00:44:42):
And I'll put it in the show notes as well.
Rachel Casey (00:44:43):
Grateful that you came on here and shared your experience.
Tim Lineaweaver (00:44:46):
I really enjoyed it.
Rachel Casey (00:44:47):
And your strength, your hope.
Rachel Casey (00:44:48):
Absolutely.
Rachel Casey (00:44:49):
And again,
Rachel Casey (00:44:50):
so knowing that you're looking for a publisher and working on the memoir and those
Rachel Casey (00:44:55):
memoirs really help people.
Rachel Casey (00:44:56):
And I know that and talking to different authors,
Rachel Casey (00:44:59):
it's really cool to see a review of someone they do not know.
Rachel Casey (00:45:02):
And they're like, wow, this book just really spoke to me and spoke to especially with trauma.
Rachel Casey (00:45:06):
That's such a big one and one that people don't like to talk about.
Rachel Casey (00:45:09):
So reading it
Rachel Casey (00:45:11):
can be a really great, great intro.
Rachel Casey (00:45:13):
Yeah.
Tim Lineaweaver (00:45:13):
And I know that when I was getting sober,
Tim Lineaweaver (00:45:16):
it really helped me to,
Tim Lineaweaver (00:45:17):
you know,
Tim Lineaweaver (00:45:17):
that somebody was being upfront about their addiction and how they got sober would,
Tim Lineaweaver (00:45:21):
you know,
Tim Lineaweaver (00:45:21):
like,
Tim Lineaweaver (00:45:21):
I love to read about that.
Tim Lineaweaver (00:45:23):
Even you still do now.
Tim Lineaweaver (00:45:24):
Yeah.
Rachel Casey (00:45:25):
Yeah, me too.
Rachel Casey (00:45:25):
I was going to say, it hasn't gone away from me yet.
Rachel Casey (00:45:28):
I'm still very like connect with someone and you're like, that's my story.
Rachel Casey (00:45:32):
And it's, it's, it feels very like you're not alone and you are anyone listening.
Rachel Casey (00:45:38):
You're not alone.
Rachel Casey (00:45:39):
I know that for a fact.
Rachel Casey (00:45:40):
Thank you for listening.
Rachel Casey (00:45:41):
And I will put everything else in the show notes and hope you have a good rest of your day.
Tim Lineaweaver (00:45:45):
And you too.
Tim Lineaweaver (00:45:46):
And thank you so much for having me.
Tim Lineaweaver (00:45:48):
I really appreciate it.
