Transformative Moments in Addiction Recovery with Donna Marston

When Not Yet Becomes Right Now (00:00)
Welcome to When Not Yet Becomes Right Now, the podcast where we dive deep into the moments of transformation, the times when not yet shifts into right now and everything changes. I'm your host, Jen Ginty and this podcast is all about those pivotal moments in our life journeys. You know the ones when the hesitation fades, when we take that first step, even if it feels like a leap. It's in these moments that growth and healing begins. Each episode will explore stories of resilience,

moments of clarity, and the sparks that ignite real change. From personal experiences to expert insights, we'll uncover how people navigate the complex journey we call life and come out stronger on the other side. Whether you're searching for that spark in your own life or just curious about how change unfolds for others, you're in the right place. We'll discuss the ups and downs, the breakthroughs and setbacks, and how to embrace the right now, even when it feels out of reach. Because sometimes,

The hardest part of the journey is realizing that the moment you've been waiting for has already arrived. So take a deep breath, settle in, and let's get started.

Jen (01:12)
Hello and welcome to When Not Yet Becomes Right Now. Today I have a wonderful guest. Her name is Donna Marston, and she is a parent, support coach, author, and advocate who has transformed her personal journey through her son's active addiction and recovery into a message of hope and healing. As the founder of Sharing Without Shame, she empowers families impacted by addiction through workshops, coaching, and support groups.

Donna is the author of four books, including Peeling the Onion and Healing Without Shame, which provides tools and insights for navigating the challenges of addiction. A certified recovery support worker, energy healer, and Shambhala Rikhi master, she is passionate about educating families on addiction recovery and the importance of resilience and self-care. Hi, Donna. Good, welcome, welcome. Thank you.

Donna Marston (02:05)
Hi, how are you?

Thank

you for having me. Of course.

Jen (02:10)
Let's get into it. What is your origin story?

Donna Marston (02:15)
my goodness. So I am a mom whose oldest son was started probably just with cannabis at age 15, just started experimenting. And that experimenting went into full fledged addiction.

And for the first five years, 15 to 20, I suspected something was off, but I couldn't figure it out. know, mother's instinct. But I thought, you know, he's a teenager. They're irritable and discontent. You know, they're disheveled at times and they don't always take care of themselves. And so a lot of it, I just thought, that's kind of normal stuff. Things started to really manifest.

Jen (02:54)
Yeah.

Donna Marston (03:10)
the last five years, well, yeah, from 20 to 25. And, it was, it was just a nightmare, my nightmare because I, I, I, you know, I didn't understand it. I didn't know what I was dealing with. I didn't know anything about addiction. And yet I thought, well, I'm the mother, so I can just, I can handle all this. And I made a lot of mistakes.

I learned the hard way that I couldn't love him into recovery. was his unhealthy helper, which often is called like the chief enabler, but I don't like those shaming and blaming labels because we get shamed and blamed for loving our children and doing the best we can trying to what people call rescue.

but we don't realize that until we realize that. So, you know, I just did a lot wrong and I got really sick. And so for when he admitted to some of it at age 20, I went in the fetal position. just, went to bed when nobody was looking. I'd get my husband off to work and my other son off to school. And I would just cry. And, and I just,

made myself so miserable with the what ifs, the could have, should have. Did I love him different than his brother? It must be my fault. I'm the mother. I should have known just all that stuff that we do to ourselves. And so that went on for six months. And there was one day where I got out of bed and I was kind of just roaming around the house. And I realized like, didn't, I didn't crush boxes so he could snort them. And I certainly didn't shoot her went into his vein. So

It's not my deal. And I was able to somewhat let go of that. However, in that moment of some clarity, I realized, yeah, but you have a secret and you just can't tell anybody about this. Cause back then, you know, this was, he's been, he's been in recovery for, it'll be almost 17 years. So back then in the 1990s, 2000s, early 2000s,

We didn't have the resources. You didn't talk about it. You're to be blackballed in your community, or at least that's how I felt. And so I kept my secret. And I learned the hard way that we're as sick as our secret. you know, it just, just trying to figure this out and, and it was, it was a long, lonely, miserable journey. Yeah.

Jen (05:57)
Wow, I mean, that sounds, it's like, you know what? We don't come with an instruction manual. Humans don't have an instruction manual at all. And it's really hard, I think, when kids are young, they believe in some way that we do have an instruction manual for them and that we're supposed to know exactly how to take on all of the challenges of being a parent. And we don't, there's no way that we can possibly know

how to handle each difficulty that our child can go through because some of us don't even get the parents that taught us in any way, right?

Donna Marston (06:42)
Yeah, and I think one of the things I learned late in life is that our kids are watching us grow up. And I wasn't prepared for addiction in my family. I didn't grow up around it. Even though I grew up in the 60s and 70s, and was sex, drugs, and rock and roll, and the hippies and all that stuff, it just wasn't in my life. And so then I went.

happened in my family, was disturbing, you know, and what do you deal with it? Where do you go with it?

Jen (07:21)
So you didn't have any addictive people in your life, people who have had addictions before. I can only imagine how complicated it would be for you to recognize and understand what you're looking at if you haven't had that in your life beforehand.

Donna Marston (07:41)
Right.

Yeah. Now my husband had it his family. Very prevalent. But again, you know, it was all new to me, even though he grew up with it and he had, so he had zero tolerance. So we did things very different, but he was in the car business. So he'd leave at 7.38 in the morning, get home 8.30, nine o'clock at night. Great. Cause I could make a mess, right?

Because he'd be like, get out. You're not wanted here. If you're going to do drugs and behave like this, get out. Where I'm like, I'll tell you a story. The night that our son told us a little bit. Because they'll tell you a piece of it. They're not going to tell you the whole thing. So if you have somebody that suffers from alcoholism, how many bears did you have today? They might tell you two or three, when in fact, it was a 12-pack.

It's always double triple. So when I found out, you know, he said it was oxys. And so I got my husband and you know, because now I mean business and bring my husband down. And so in our son was a cigarette smoker at the time. And so he said, Well, if you're going to do drugs, then you need to leave. He took his cigarettes, and he crumbled them up. And he threw them in the trash. And then he went to bed.

And so after he went to bed and I knew he was in bed and wasn't going to get out again, I went in the trash, got his the cigarettes and you know, made him made him look better and said, here, honey, you do one thing at a time. That's you know, let's talk about your addiction. Don't worry about him. I'll take care of him.

Jen (09:25)
Yeah, yeah.

Donna Marston (09:27)
It

was not a healthy way of thinking.

Jen (09:30)
But it was being the protective mother, right? We all want to protect our children in some way. And your husband's words may have been harsh. And I'm sure he wasn't expecting that it was just going to happen overnight, right? But as moms, feel as though, especially for our sons, we like to put a little blanket around them and be like, it's OK, we're going to get through this.

Donna Marston (10:00)
bubble wrap. You have to bubble wrap them because you never know what they're going to do. Diving off of all kinds of stuff. My boys had no fear. So they were risk takers.

Jen (10:02)
Right.

Yeah, and your son, he was using this recreationally. Did he ever have to get it given to him by prescription before?

Donna Marston (10:26)
No, his was recreationally. And well, if you're talking as like, MAT, medicated assisted treatment, is that what you mean?

Jen (10:37)
I had a couple of back surgeries and they just threw oxy at me like constantly and I because I knew that I had addiction in my family I was like I'm not taking this even though they kept touting that it was not addictive right this terrible thing that they did and all of these people became addicted so

I tend to think when people say that they're taking oxy that it's because they had to take it for pain and now they're addicted. But there is a whole recreational side of that as well.

Donna Marston (11:12)
absolutely. Just like with Adderall, know, Ritalin, all of it. It's amazing how our children when they get into active addiction, they're like chemists. It's amazing the things that they figure out what to do and the concoctions that they come up with. It's mind blowing. You know, it just it's scary.

Jen (11:39)
So how many years were you working with him on this?

Donna Marston (11:45)
Well, the first five I really didn't know what I was going, I was dealing with. And the last five is when I knew. And as the years moved on, I found out more and more and more. The truth begins to unfold. There's things you can't kind of hide. You know, like I found needles in my house.

At one time he said, that belongs to so-and-so. I said, well, he's never allowed here again. And then, his brother found a needle and, you know, things like that. And when confronted at one point, he did admit to it. And that was when he was 25. And I think he was getting to the point of hitting his enough. so, you know, in and out of treatment for probably a year and a half, two years, he'd do okay for.

a short period and then he'd go back out and it would take me, I'd be suspicious, but there were always like 10 steps ahead of us. And so I was, my gut would say, I don't think he's doing what he's supposed to be doing. I think he's back using, but denial is a beautiful thing. I just wanted to believe it. No, he's doing good. He's doing good.

But I had to educate myself because there are times when our children are in recovery, but they mimic the behaviors, which is post acute withdrawal syndrome, it's pause. So for the first, it could be 12 to 24 months, depending on how long they used, how much they use, that their brain is healing. know, parents would come to me and say, I can't have a normal conversation. I think they're using. We'd talk about

post-acute withdrawal syndrome and say, just give them 18 months to 24 months, and then you should start seeing things change. And then they'd come back and go, oh, thank you. It's so much better now. Yes, we have to look at different things.

Jen (13:50)
Wow.

So 10 years. I think there is this idea out there that someone who has such a severe addiction can just get over it.

Donna Marston (14:05)
No, God no.

Jen (14:07)
Yeah.

Donna Marston (14:08)
Well, I thought, yeah, I sent my son to rehab and, you know, one and done. But see, I think there's levels of severity. I think there's some people that might be new to it and their addiction hasn't really fully taken off and they can be one and done. I know I've had people speak at my meetings and they went to rehab and they never, never used again. My son was in and out and for, you know, those five years.

I know I went on a mission for the state and there was a guy on this mission recovery mission and he was 80 times before he found recovery and he was probably in his sixties, but at that point much later in life. And then there's some people, I think they're just so chronic that it's just the way that they want to live, you know, or they, some people just can't find their way into recovery unless they use medicated assisted treatment.

You know, but my son didn't, you know, I was, I was, don't know if you call it ignorant, but when the doctor would say, well, we're going to put them on this. I was like, no, no, no. If he's living in my house, he's, he's, he's drug free. There's, there's no drugs. I was never want to take drugs, my husband and I. So that was a drug free house. And, um, so I didn't want to put a bandaid on it, but again,

I didn't know what I was dealing with. I didn't know what I was talking about. I just needed to be in control.

Jen (15:45)
Yeah, there's a control that that word control and you learn early in motherhood, you can't control your children, you know, they're their own beings and they think differently from us. They learn differently from us. They're not carbon copies of us. And that's

Donna Marston (16:10)
When they're in active addiction, their brain is wired differently than ours as well.

Jen (16:16)
Yeah, yeah, that's amazing. It's kind of like trauma, where your neurons are changed, you're rewired, your body chemistry has changed, right? So actually using these drugs is traumatic to your body.

Donna Marston (16:35)
And it's really not so much about the drug of choice. It's the why. What happened in your life that you're putting a bandaid on and masking your pain? It could have been something, you know, as a child that affected their nervous system. And so our nervous system remembers and it carries on until we're able to really look at it and heal it. It could be that. It could be genetics. You know, there's so many different things.

It could be somebody was given oxys for a medical reason, know, surgery or whatever, and they were on it so long that it changed their brain chemistry and they became addicted. You know, there's so many different reasons. I think my son, it was in, it was genetics because my husband's family is just riddled with it.

Jen (17:26)
Yeah, mine is too, and my children's father's side is as well. So it's always been in the back of my mind, and I've been telling them that since they were young. We have addictive personalities. We need to be careful. But saying that kind of thing doesn't just make it not happen. There has to be some sort of understanding of it, right?

Donna Marston (17:49)
And

the thing is, a lot of kids do it out of peer pressure. They want to fit in and feel cool. They don't know that they have this little tiger, this little disease laying dormant in their body. And so my son, he has this, I call it a tiger. So here's my beautiful boy. And here's the disease and it's asleep when he's born. And so at age 15,

he starts using some cannabis, so he wakes it up. And the more he uses, you know, they switch places. My son's lost in the bowels of addiction, but he was just, he was just messing around. He was just trying to fit in. He didn't realize, no matter how much we told him, you know, be very careful, don't be doing stuff because your aunts and uncles had serious issues and it could happen to you.

We're all in the invincible, right? And when we're teenagers. So, you know, they're not going to listen, unfortunately. And then there's, there's kids that that can go and do it recreationally, they're fine. And there's kids like my son that couldn't and he can't couldn't drink either. Because if he wouldn't had it, because this is how he had a lot of reoccurrences is he would want to go out with his buddies.

They're all having a beer. He'd have a beer or two within a month or so from coming home from rehab. It weakens his senses and eventually he's back to doing his hardcore drugs.

Jen (19:27)
Yeah, wow. So it can be as simple as that.

Donna Marston (19:29)
is drug of choice.

Mm hmm. Wow. Yeah. And explain that to a teenager or someone who's 20, 21. And they think, what do mean? I can never drink with my friends again. That's a that's huge. That's really hard. That's why a lot of younger people, I think from 20, 25 really struggle or even maybe 30. They really struggle with the, you know, but my friends can do it. And I want to go to the bar and I want to do this. But

And I can tell you for my son, he found a whole different world of friendships and things to do in the world of recovery.

Jen (20:11)
Yeah, community in that sense must be very big for alcoholics anonymous and different addictive groups. When I was a kid and I was forced to go into group therapy, I hated it. Absolutely hated it. But when I became an adult and I realized that there are other people out there who understand how I feel, what I'm going through.

triggers that I have, it opened up a whole new world.

Donna Marston (20:46)
Yeah, and I didn't find those things out till later in life, is hard. You know, this all hit and I learned so much more because it wakes other things up that maybe we've suppressed, you know, over the years.

Jen (21:00)
So what was the right now moment for your son?

Donna Marston (21:09)
well, typically he would go to rehab to get me off his back. And that's what he did this time. And while he was there, there was a day that he had said that he came across a big book, a big book, and he started thumbing through it because he typically went to rehab to get me off his back.

And then figured, well, I've got a month or two before she catches on. But this time he had a meeting with himself in the mirror with the person who uses drugs and the person who was newly sober. I don't know what was said. It's not my business. I've never asked, but he said to me, he goes, mom, when I was looking at myself in the mirror,

I felt a negative energy leave my body that night and I knew I was going to be okay.

Jen (22:06)
that's wonderful. Yes, absolutely. Did your right now moment come along with his?

Donna Marston (22:08)
To me, that's a spiritual awakening.

Yeah, he just knew.

My right now moment was two years before his. Yeah, I was so emotionally ill and I had a client say to me, because you know, back then I was a hairdresser and nobody knew what was going on, but she knew I wasn't myself. And so she said, you had to read this book. And I was like, I cannot read another self-help book. I just had no interest. And she said, okay, go to page 134.

Jen (22:22)
Okay.

Donna Marston (22:50)
book asking it's given. And when I did, there was an emotional scale. It was one to 22. And I was number 22. I was devastated that how did I get so emotionally ill? How did I allow myself to be in this situation? And at that moment, I knew I needed to change, I needed to do something different, because this wasn't working, it didn't feel good. And so

I printed it off, I put it in a frame and I put it on my desk and every day I would look at it. And so I remember, I think it was number 18 was anger. Cause some of the others, I I wasn't there emotionally because I was so numbed out. I couldn't tell you a feeling if you asked me. When I saw this, I saw the feelings and it was like,

my God, like how could this be? So I decided a day or two later to deal with my anger. Didn't realize I had anger, but I just decided I'm going to go take a pillow and I'm going to just beat my bed. And I did. And all this anger came out. And then I realized, okay, well that felt better. So then I would try to vibrate myself up. So now I keep myself one to seven. If I get to number eight, which is boredom,

All bets are off. Even though I've been in recovery for being codependent and the unhealthy helper and all that, I can vibrate down and start some of the old behaviors. See, we mimic each other's behaviors, right? I don't have an SUD, a substance use disorder, but I have the behaviors of the unhealthy helper. And so I have to work my recovery program.

so that I keep myself emotionally well, just like my son. He works the recovery program to keep himself emotionally well.

Jen (24:58)
Yeah. So when you had that right now moment, what changed for you in regards to your relationship with your son?

Donna Marston (25:09)
Well, not so much with him, but for me, I started realizing I was holding my breath. And so I started to breathe.

I knew I needed to do something different. I started to reach out for help and I went on a spiritual journey, which was very beneficial for me. I ended up having Reiki and it was the first time and I couldn't tell you how long that I felt a lightness in my heart and I laughed that day.

hadn't remembered the last time I laughed and I had a little bounce in my step. And from that, thought, this feels so good. I want to learn how to do this. And so I ended up finding somebody. ended up becoming a Shambali Reiki master. then, you know, my, whole thing organically grew, nothing I intended. And so I started offering Reiki to my hair clients and, and then I started speaking out and then

became an advocate and my life just snowballed into opening a business and all kinds of stuff. you know, getting back to your point, I just, it's baby, it was baby steps and it took me a long time and in working a recovery program and learning to zip my lip and mind my own business and stop trying to micromanage my son's addiction or his recovery.

Jen (26:44)
That's powerful.

Donna Marston (26:46)
Hmm, that's not easy.

Jen (26:48)
I can't imagine it could be.

Donna Marston (26:51)
I had a friend that last rehab, he went to a friend called that night and she said, Hey, I hear your son's coming home tomorrow. And I said, he is. And she goes, Oh, you must be so excited. And I'm saying I am, but you know, but he owes us thousands and thousands and thousands. And, he has to do this and he needs to get a job and he needs you know, just like vomiting all this, what he has to do. And she's a person in recovery. And she said, Donna,

Why don't you do something different this time? I was like, well, what's that? goes, why don't you mind your own business? Why don't you zip your lip and work a recovery program and let him work his?

Jen (27:31)
Wow.

Donna Marston (27:33)
Well, let me tell you, I was not happy with her because my thought is I'm his mother. This is I'm supposed to do this stuff. If I'm taking my job seriously, I'm supposed to do this stuff. Something happened that night. I don't know what happened, what shifted. But I woke up and I minded my own business. And I didn't ask him about his recovery. I didn't try to shame and blame him into doing what I thought was right.

I would just say, love you, have a great day. And that would be it. And I had to hold my breath a lot because, you know, it's hard to trust. And I would just hand it over to a power greater than me because that was a really difficult time for me. some thoughts that were really anxious, I would just write in a journal about it. And then, you know, I would write about how grateful I was every day.

Jen (28:21)
I can imagine.

Donna Marston (28:32)
before I got out of bed so that I could just remind myself that everything's gonna be okay. Sometimes we just have to get out of the way.

Jen (28:44)
Do you think that that made a positive impact on your son?

Donna Marston (28:48)
I think it was a lot easier for him than trying to get me out of the way. Yeah, he was able to not have to put up with my antics. I've done a lot in the state of New Hampshire, but I used to go to some of these classes, and it would be people in recovery and me. And one guy said to me one time, hey, go

when you do yourself, I was usually the only mother and he goes, Oh, you know why we don't like you? And he goes, cause you remind us, he goes, parents remind us of everything we do wrong. They never tell us what we do right. And he's absolutely right. When our children are in active addiction, we're so hyper-focused on everything they're doing wrong. We don't look at that one little thing they might be doing right.

Jen (29:24)
Wow.

Donna Marston (29:45)
And I had to shift my perspective and my thoughts and I had to look at what he was doing right. And just, know, hey, that's great. You're doing a great job. You must feel good about that. I'm proud of you.

Jen (30:00)
Yeah, I think this is important for so many parents to hear that we need to add a little positivity into our conversations with our children, even though they pissed us off or embarrassed us or any of those kinds of things, that our children are only human and we thrive on positivity.

Donna Marston (30:26)
But we do the same things to them too. You know, it goes both ways. We're not always more mature than they are. on our level of hurt and our level of what we've done to heal. Right? We have, you know, it's looking at all that. And unfortunately for me, I didn't learn a lot of this till later in life. There's so much that could have been avoided had I known. And that's what I do for the parents I work with, you know, is just.

give them that opportunity. I help them heal, whether it has something to do with their child's active addiction or not, but I help them through their pain so they don't mix it all up and make it messy, you know, that we just, they can move forward and understand what addiction is and how to love somebody who's an active addiction. How do you have a healthy relationship with the person who

is physically and emotionally unhealthy. That's challenging, but there's ways.

Jen (31:33)
And that's what you're doing now. You've taken everything that you didn't know and learned and you're helping those who don't know to learn quicker than you did, right?

Donna Marston (31:48)
Yeah, so they don't become emotionally and financially depleted like I did.

Jen (31:54)
And that's the power you have, is being able to share that and to give that advice because you went through it.

Donna Marston (32:04)
Yeah, and the other thing I learned is, and I share this with parents, is I don't label, I don't use the A words. I hate those words. I don't like labeling somebody because they have a brain disorder. And so when people work with me, we use their children's first names. There's some groups that refer to their kids as their AS or AD. You know, that's not allowed in my groups.

your child has a name, let's use it. And that addiction piece is just a small piece of what's going on. It's not who they are. And so when I talk to parents instead of saying you're codependent and you're enabling, I'll say, well, let's talk about the unhealthy behaviors. You know, when my son was an active addiction, I was paying off his drug dealers. I was doing all kinds of stuff. Let's talk about that, because it's okay. This is a safe place.

And I'll see them just their shoulders relaxed because we're always like this. We're so uptight, right? And we're holding our breath. just a mess. So, you know, it just, I offer them the opportunity to just relax. It's baby steps. This isn't going to happen overnight. It's just baby steps for everyone to get better in the family.

Jen (33:28)
So when a family wants to reach out to you and work with you, how does that happen? What are the steps that are taken?

Donna Marston (33:39)
Well, they can go on my webpage, is www.sharingwithoutshame.com and they can do a free discovery call with me for like 20 minutes. And then if they like me, they can book a session. And actually right now I even have, for anybody who's new, they get a free book, my Sharing Without Shame book.

Jen (34:05)
That's wonderful. So they come to you and they tell you their story. And I'm sure you see a lot of yourself in them when you talk to them. How does the conversation go about, okay, so a child is addicted. What are the core things that you guys discuss when you start?

Donna Marston (34:35)
Well, I think, you know, what happens lots of times and they found this. So I ran family support groups for over 12 years and the parent would come in and the first time they come and say, and they'll usually use the slang language, but they'll say, you know, I have a son or daughter addicted or an act of addiction and they just sob. They can't even say their name. I just hold space for them. That's, know.

And then when they're ready, know, well, tell me your story. I want to hear what your story is. And then we'll talk about self-care because that's really important. We'll talk about what recovery looks like. I teach them about the cycle of addiction, the stages of change, the drama triangle that we all get involved in. So, you know, I do a lot of education.

so that they have an understanding of what they're dealing with. And then we can put a plan together that's specifically for their needs. If they have a teen or adult child living at home, we can put together a living agreement, which is an agreement that talks about how we're going to live in the same house together and be respectful and kind. we do a three strikes, you're out, especially if it's a teenager.

So, and they say what they want to say and they can even have their child join us and we'll create it together because they deserve to have a say as well. Yeah. And being respectful of each other and not name calling and I think there's, you know, there's families that don't realize how dysfunctional they are because of their behaviors. And it's stuff that

Jen (36:13)
That's important.

Donna Marston (36:31)
They've carried pride from their childhood into their parenting. And when they know better, you do better.

Jen (36:41)
Yeah, that's it. When you know better, you do better. And again, we don't get the instruction manual.

Donna Marston (36:51)
Not with this. No, this is even yeah, add this to the to the mix. And no, we don't. And it's a hard thing to navigate all by ourselves. And a lot of the parents carry the shame and they just isolate. And that's not healthy. That's not emotionally or physically healthy. And I get it. You know, but I just

Jen (36:53)
definitely.

Donna Marston (37:20)
You know, I just reach out my hand. So, well, I used to end my meetings with everyone would get up and we'd do the serenity prayer, but I, you know, I put my hand in yours so together we can do what you no longer have to do.

Jen (37:33)
That's beautiful.

Donna Marston (37:34)
and you have a whole community of people that will love you unconditionally and help you navigate through all of this.

Jen (37:43)
Yeah, and I want to bring up the sharing without shame. That is such a powerful statement, sharing without shame, because there's shame all around in this, right? There's shame with the person who's in addiction. There's shame with the family because they don't want people to know. This is a mental health issue. So again, there you throw the mental health part of it onto it and people don't want to talk about

Donna Marston (38:10)
Right. Yeah. Well, you know, you look at the generations, right? Like my grandparents, I did a piece on this, the generations of addiction. So my grandparents, who would be probably in their hundred, like, yeah, over a hundred years old, but their generation was, don't make waves. Just don't make waves. Everything's a secret. Everything stays here. Right?

And, you know, same with my mom's generation, kind of the same thing. I'm a baby boomer. Children are to be seen, but not heard. Stuff your emotions. If you're too sensitive, just stuff them because we don't want to know about it.

Jen (38:55)
Yep, don't be an angry child. Don't make your grandmother upset with your sadness or uncomfortable, right? Those were the things.

Donna Marston (39:03)
Cry,

give me something to cry about.

Jen (39:05)
Yeah, that's what we were told.

Donna Marston (39:07)
I mean, how unhealthy is this stuff? And so if you don't heal that, now you bring it on to your kids. But as the generations, like the really younger generations, probably millennials and younger, are much more open to mental health and talking about their feelings or their anxiety. know, the older generations didn't even know that what anxiety was, even though they had, they don't know what that feeling was.

Because we couldn't talk about it. Nope, you're not gonna go to a psychologist, because that's not, what you, crazy?

Jen (39:44)
Right, yes, if you go to a psychologist, they consider you crazy.

Donna Marston (39:48)
Right, yeah, so it's just a messy situation until one person is ready to break the cycle and start step outside of like the hula hoop, right? Of all the crap that we have hanging off of us. Step outside and that one person is ready to make a difference.

Jen (40:11)
Yeah, and it's very difficult for people who don't give themselves the grace. It's difficult for them to understand that there is such a thing as generational trauma that comes onto the next generation, which is you. And if you don't get support for it, it's gonna go to the next generation.

Donna Marston (40:37)
Mm-hmm. Yeah, somebody has to just get there enough to say, I'm not doing this anymore. I'm going to do it different and I'm going to treat my children different and I'm going to hear them and I'm going to see them.

Jen (40:53)
Yes. Yeah. Tell me about the book. Well, you have four books.

Donna Marston (40:57)
I four books. So my first book was Peeling the Onion. And so this is really about my journey of my pain. This is how I survived the horrible emotional pain. And then I did, I used to write on my Facebook page,

Just for today, every day, and I did it for 365 days. And then I came up with my Just for today book. So 365 days of just inspirational things about addiction and recovery and unhealthy helping. And Sharing Without Shame is my newest book. Well, actually, In Healing Without Shame. And Sharing Without Shame has, I think there's six parents in here.

who talk about how they navigate it through their loved one's addiction. And then I have six people who are in recovery that talk about their pathway. But there's a lot of good information about the cycle of addiction, about stages of recovery. There's a lot in here that can teach people about coping skills. And then Healing Without Shame is a journal that goes with Sharing Without Shame. Yeah, so this just has some pictures in there and all kinds of...

Jen (42:16)
that's lovely.

Donna Marston (42:21)
neat little things.

Jen (42:23)
That's wonderful. sounds like so I created my doll, my pull apart monster out of the frustration that I had with my own emotions and my own symptoms with my PTSD. And it sounds like your books are kind of like my monster. It's a love language to the healing that you're doing. Yeah.

Donna Marston (42:47)
Yeah.

Well, and I didn't know I had PTSD. So many years later, I was the homeopathic doctor and she wanted to do my adrenals and all kinds of different type of blood work. she said, you have PTSD. I said, so yeah, that happens.

You know, no one's talking about that.

Jen (43:13)
Nope. So where can we find you?

Donna Marston (43:17)
Sharing without shame www.sharingwithoutshame.com or they can email me at Donna the NNA the number four then the word support at Comcast net.

Jen (43:33)
So I will definitely have that in the show notes so that everybody can reach out to Donna. As a final word, what advice would you give to a parent that is just starting this journey with their child?

Donna Marston (43:48)
Mm. Remember to breathe.

And you know, as long as your child is still walking on this earth, you never know when the miracle is going to happen. So hold on to your hope.

Jen (44:03)
That's beautiful. Well, thank you so much for coming on the show, Donna. It is such a wonderful conversation.

Donna Marston (44:08)
Thank you for having me.

When Not Yet Becomes Right Now (44:18)
I'm so happy to have had this conversation with Donna, who is helping others with the knowledge she has when coping with a loved one's addiction. As she says, she went through all of the hardest parts of being a mother with a child in addiction, and she is able to help other parents to learn from her journey. Please reach out to Donna if you have questions or if you would like to join her community. As I've learned over the years and what has been a common theme throughout this podcast, community can be so healing.

because it helps to be with others who are going through the same things you are. And Donna's books have a plethora of insights and also prompts to help you discover where you are on your own healing journey.