Breaking the Cycle: Healing From Generational Addiction and Trauma with Jennifer Chase

In this episode of Carrie's Always Talking, Carrie speaks with Jennifer Chase, who shares her personal journey through addiction, recovery, and the impact on her family. She discusses the generational cycles of addiction, the role of shame, and the importance of understanding addiction as a disease rather than a choice. Jennifer emphasizes the need for boundaries, coping mechanisms, and the significance of community support in recovery. She also highlights the misconceptions surrounding addiction and the challenges of codependency, ultimately advocating for empathy and compassion towards those struggling with addiction.

Jennifer's Website:

https://www.riseaddictionlc.com/

If you have a story you'd like to tell, send me an email at carrie.always.talking@gmail.com. I'd love to hear from you.

You can also find me on Bluesky- @carrie-is-talking.bsky.social 

www.youtube.com/@carrie-always-talking

Transcript

Carrie McNulty (00:01)
Hello and welcome back to Carrie's Always Talking. I'm your host, Carrie McNulty. This is the podcast all about stories and connections. I believe that when people share their story with one another, it's the main way that we build empathy and humanity. And that's something I think we need a lot more of in the world today. Today is episode nine of season two. I do have a guest with me, so I'm excited about that. And I think you'll really enjoy the conversation today.

If you are somebody who is new to listening or has been listening, I always like to say thank you for joining me. And if you like what you're hearing, I would ask that you rate and review the podcast wherever you're listening, because that helps me to be found in the ratings. Truthfully, I do this mostly for fun for me, but it's always nice whenever I can reach new people, which is also what this is about.

If you are able, I'm going to ask that you join me in making a monthly donation to your local food bank. That's still something that I'm doing and still something that I'm asking of my listeners if they are able and have the means to do so. Food insecurity is real and that's going to continue to be a big issue amongst many other things. And so

I don't think anybody should have to go without eating or basic necessities. And that's one area where I'm choosing to put some financial support behind because I am able to do so. And so I'm asking you to join me if you can. I also haven't said in a while, if you'd like to come on the show, please reach out.

The way you can reach me best is my email address, which is going to be in the show notes. If you have a story that you want to tell, you can do so anonymously if you want to. So let me tell you a little bit about my guest today. And her name is Jennifer Chase. She's somebody who brings not just professional wisdom, but a deeply personal experience to one of the most complex and emotional challenges that many families face, and that's addiction. She's a certified addiction coach who specializes in helping the loved ones of

Addicts navigate the chaos shame and grief that often come with addiction. She's not just a coach She's also a woman in recovery herself the daughter of an alcoholic and the mother of a recovering addict Jennifer knows the journey from every angle and she's turned that pain into purpose by helping others find clarity set boundaries and begin to find peace So with that said there's gonna be some talk actually a lot of talk of addiction today So if that's something that's challenging for you

I just want to give you a heads up that that's going to be the main focus of my guest today. And with that said, I'm to go ahead and get us in to the conversation and I will talk to you guys in, well, talk at you, talk to you ⁓ in another couple of weeks.

Carrie McNulty (03:03)
Hi Jennifer, thanks for joining me.

Jennifer Chase (03:05)
You're welcome. I'm so excited to be here today.

Carrie McNulty (03:08)
I'm glad to have you. Looking forward to whatever stories you feel moved to share with us today.

Jennifer Chase (03:16)
Yeah,

think some of ⁓ the things that I am passionate about is I am a child of an alcoholic who became an addict myself who unfortunately also has a son that struggles with addiction. ⁓ And I came from ⁓ sort of generations of...

abuse in my, in my, so I have generations of sexual abuse that has happened in my home, as do many of us, unfortunately, that are raised in significant addiction. So as far as I've been able to see back on my mom's side and my dad's side, they have all struggled with mostly alcoholism, but some sort of opiate addiction before that was a cool thing to be. ⁓ And so growing up, the only thing that was important to me was for me to break the chains of that.

right, to give my children a different life than I had been given. And unfortunately in 2003, I was diagnosed with a brain tumor. And when they removed that brain tumor, thank goodness it was benign and it got removed, but I was hemorrhaging and so they caused nerve damage in my head, which then led me on my path to opiate addiction.

I share this with people that maybe don't understand what it's like to be in an addict's brain. But I remember I was about two weeks out from surgery and I was laying in my bed and I could hear my family out in the living room playing. They were having a great time. And I said out loud as though there were another 15 people in that room with me.

Carrie McNulty (04:29)
Thank you.

Jennifer Chase (04:45)
where the heck has this been my whole life? Like opiates was the solution to all of it, right? All the sexual abuse, the fact that my dad was an alcoholic, the fact that I had just had to say goodbye to my very small children a couple of weeks before. ⁓ And I think that if I can try to articulate to anybody that doesn't suffer with addiction, what it's like to be in my brain was that

substance was never the problem. Substance was the solution to the problem from that day moving forward. Right. And so when somebody just stops using substance, then we got we still got the problem. Right. We still we still have the underlying problem. when I got sick, my kids were two and five. And when I got sober, my kids were 18 and 21. ⁓

Carrie McNulty (05:15)
Yes. Yes.

Jennifer Chase (05:37)
So they lived the majority of their childhood with me as an addict. And unfortunately, when my son started dealing with his own sort of mental health and some of those struggles, he also chose substance. So it's just something that I am so passionate about now to be able to try to help people untangle this thing from a family perspective. I worked in the field of

recovery for a long time in different outpatient programs. And I got to the point where because of all of the different versions of this thing that I've experienced, I just am so passionate about trying to help family untangle.

Carrie McNulty (06:12)
I mean, I think you are so

dead on with talking about intergenerational cycles, whether it's the abuse part or the addiction part and how often they coincide. But also from the part of you that looked at your family structure at a younger age and said, that's never going to be me. I don't want that. So that part of you was there and present.

And then unfortunately, I feel like sometimes our cycles are doomed to repeat no matter how hard we try or how much we set our minds to not doing it because the people before you were never able to heal their stuff. And then you end up getting to a place where you're like, that can never be me. And then you have this horrible thing, unexpected thing happen to you. And there you land right where you thought you never would be. So.

Jennifer Chase (06:57)
And I hyper

fixated on alcohol, right? Because that was mostly what I knew around, know, people around me. And so I was very careful and understood that I had biology probably to become an alcoholic. But when pain came to my life and it was being prescribed and everybody said it would be okay and I trusted them and they said, take this many a day and you'll be fine, right? I did.

Carrie McNulty (07:01)
Yeah. ⁓

Yeah.

Jennifer Chase (07:21)
But because of all of my traumas and my biology and some of those experiences and just my family structure in general, I was pretty dead to the water pretty quick. I was probably only a couple or two or three weeks from consistent use. And it wasn't again because I was physically addicted, it was because I was emotionally addicted.

Carrie McNulty (07:26)
You

Yes.

Well, I'm sure immediately every cell in your body went, ⁓ yeah.

Jennifer Chase (07:49)
Yeah. Yes. It was,

I try to explain it to people. was like, finally, I was 29 at the time. Finally, I could take a deep breath. Finally, I fit in my skin. Finally, it felt like I wasn't in a like extra small skin when I'm like a medium, right? Like I just always, I couldn't fit. And in that moment, I was like, okay, we're gonna be okay.

Carrie McNulty (08:03)
Yeah.

Right, right.

Jennifer Chase (08:18)
it's okay. And when you experience that kind of feeling, there's, I that was, I tell people like, that was the day that I made a choice. That was the only day that I made a choice. And the choice was survival. The choice wasn't to burn everybody's life down and to, you know, to create trauma in my kid's life and all the choice was simply peace and serenity and survival inside of my bones.

Carrie McNulty (08:18)
Mm-hmm.

Yeah, trying

to heal yourself and thinking, I could probably keep this under control and manage my life. And this just feels so much better. I think people really don't understand, especially with opiates, ⁓ that it isn't like...

when you're taking that kind of drug that you're immediately zoned out. When it's something that's dangerous for you, the way it makes you feel is energized and warm and comforted and not to trigger anybody who's listening, but just to explain that it isn't that completely zoned out feeling. It is like you said, this is the best version of myself and I feel really content and at peace and warm and yeah, well it's dangerous.

Jennifer Chase (09:25)
Yeah, I think warm is a great example.

I just think it's warm like a cozy blanket in the middle of November kind of warm, right? Not like heating from the inside, but just this comfort warm. you could get to all spectrums of use, and I certainly did, but the goal, really what I was chasing for the next 14 years was that ultimate feeling of peace.

Carrie McNulty (09:32)
Yes. Yes.

Yeah. Yeah.

Jennifer Chase (09:54)
was peace.

Yeah.

Carrie McNulty (09:57)
So what was it like for you when you realized, wait a second, this is the exact opposite of what I had hoped for and this might be an issue.

Jennifer Chase (10:09)
Well, happened, that realization happened years before I got sober, right? Because the truth is, there are consequences and benefits to using substance and the benefits so far outweighed the consequences for such a long time that I knew that we were in trouble, or by we, I mean me.

Carrie McNulty (10:22)
Mm-hmm.

Mm-hmm.

Mm-hmm. Your parts, you and

the parts of you, yeah.

Jennifer Chase (10:35)
knew

I was over my skis on this one. I knew there was no going back. I even knew this isn't getting better and we aren't going to find our way out of this. Like it's only going to get worse and the benefits still so outweigh the consequences of it for such a long time. But what happened for me was I found out in October of 2016 that my 17 year old son that I had become his drug dealer.

Carrie McNulty (11:02)
⁓

Jennifer Chase (11:04)
⁓ And I wish all things holy. I wish that that had been the day that I had said this is enough. ⁓ But unfortunately, it wasn't, right? because by that point, I hated myself so much. I had so much shame. I knew I had become the parent that I never wanted to be.

And so I woke up every single day with what such tremendous shame that I don't think at that point of time I would have done it for myself. But as I learned and that's just the truth. mean, when I say that people are like, well, that sounds really harsh, but it's just the facts. I was my son's drug dealer. And so the next six months or so was really me getting to the bottom, getting to a point where

when I found out that my son was addicted to opiates, the consequences and the benefits started to switch because, yeah, they started shifting. And so he graduated from high school in May of 2017, and I checked myself into an inpatient facility the very next day. And that did not happen by accident. It was a very intentional decision. And when I went in there, my whole plan was, how do I start using like a gentle lady?

Carrie McNulty (11:59)
It shifted.

Jennifer Chase (12:21)
How do I get my tolerance down? How do I get drugs out of the house? How do I stop? Like the goal was stop being your son's drug dealer. And what I found was just complete transformation and transcendence and peace. what a journey that was, right? Because my son didn't stop using for another three years. Yeah.

Carrie McNulty (12:24)
Mm-hmm.

Yeah. ⁓ and

it really is the kind of thing it seems that people need to come to it in their time. I want you to talk, if you would, a little bit more about the shame component, because I think that ⁓ so often when people are addicted, the way it's portrayed or the way people see it is that it is a selfish act and people don't see it as what it is, which is an illness, and that people really are riddled with guilt and shame.

every single day. They're not unaware that what is happening is not, you know, it's not the ideal situation for themselves or their families. So.

Jennifer Chase (13:20)
think my description of what my shame felt like was that I was literally being buried alive. And the only way that I could get breath was to take more substance. It's the only thing that made it so that I could deal with the level of shame that I was experiencing.

I can maybe tell you two or three people in the last eight years, two or three addicts in the last year that would come up to me and say, Jennifer, I don't, I don't have any shame, right? I don't, I don't, I don't experience any of that. And even those two or three, if I were to say, but tell me about, did you ever feel like you were a square peg in a round hole? Right.

Like even if you, because they're always like, no, I had a great childhood. My parents were fantastic, right? They have shame for having shame, if you will. But almost every single one of us has felt like a square peg in a round hole, right? We either feel too deeply, which is my experience. I'm definitely an empath and I feel just the weight of the world so heavy. My son is the same way.

Carrie McNulty (14:07)
Yeah.

Jennifer Chase (14:24)
or we feel weird or you know, there's a million reasons, right? But what that is, is so we believe that we have to be this ideal versions of ourselves in order to be liked, loved, seen and appreciated in the world. But then there's this authentic version of us and the space in between the ideal version that I think I have to be and the authentic person that I actually am in my core, that is where our shame lies. And

For me, I just kept getting farther and farther away from this authentic version of me. And I think especially because my whole life was, I'm gonna do it better than my parents did it. My whole life was, I'm gonna be a better mom than my mom was, or I'm never gonna put my kids at risk like my dad did, right? I'm gonna protect my family, like all the things. And then I ended up being exactly that version.

And so the shame that came from that, that I think really was what felt like I was being buried.

Carrie McNulty (15:28)
Hmm.

Jennifer Chase (15:30)
And it hasn't been easy to walk out of it, right? There are still days that I wake up feeling almost like I'm having a hard time catching breath. And the great news is, and for anybody out there that's thinking about getting sober, right? I have like a handful of coping skills now that I can use that are outside of using any substance at all. And that's such a blessing, but.

Carrie McNulty (15:50)
Yeah.

Jennifer Chase (15:52)
It's not to say that some days I wake up and I don't experience it because I do.

Carrie McNulty (15:57)
Yeah, and you're still surviving though. And I think that's the thing that people are afraid of when they're first trying to get to a place where, you know, they're back and forth with their recovery. And when that wave hits you or when you have to sit too long with the shame of things or going into work and having people know about you and they can tell that you've relapsed and the shame of that or the things that are happening, it really feels like.

That is never going to end. That period of time is never going to end. So hearing from you that, you can still feel that way, but you still can function and move through it, and that it doesn't last at that heightened experience for too long is really important.

Jennifer Chase (16:34)
Yeah. Well, and

I think if substance were the problem, then we would just remove substance and our lives would be best ever. Right. But become substance is not the problem. And then I remove the only coping skill I've ever had, which is substance. We get sober, we remove that coping skill and we wonder why we wonder why we live life. Right. And so it's so important to add

Carrie McNulty (16:43)
No issue.

Right.

Jennifer Chase (17:02)
the one negative coping skill to remove it, but you got to add like four or five or six or seven or eight or nine, 10 on top of the one. Because some days exercise doesn't work. Some days meditation doesn't do what it typically does, right? Some days, whatever the coping skill I'm using, there has to be many more coping skills than the one substance that I used before.

Carrie McNulty (17:14)
Thank

Jennifer Chase (17:29)
I am a huge quote girl. I love, love, love quotes. And one of the quotes that means so much to me is by Joseph Campbell. And it's, the cave you fear to enter holds the treasure you seek. And for me, the treasure I was seeking was peace and serenity and worth and joy. But I never knew how to go inside of the cave to get it, right? Because the cave is pretty dark. The cave is pretty, pretty stalagmite-y, if you will, right? ⁓

Carrie McNulty (17:42)
Hmm.

you

Jennifer Chase (18:00)
And so I've gone in there and I pull the people that I get sober with and I recover with, they've come in there with me and we've been able to go out after the years, right? We've found the treasure and we get to experience the joy of this thing called recovery. But there are days where I gotta go back in, right? For whatever reason, whether it's a family dynamic that can so quickly put me back in a situation, right? ⁓

Carrie McNulty (18:24)
Yeah. Yeah.

Jennifer Chase (18:27)
Whatever it is, there are days where I have to go back into the cave. And if I don't have, if I don't do the work every single day to keep my coping skills sharp, then those days I'm at risk. Because shame is a lifelong work. It is my life work.

Carrie McNulty (18:48)
What's it like in your family now? there other family members that are also clean? Do you still have people who are actively using? What is it like in your, and do you still feel triggered?

Jennifer Chase (18:57)
I have a wild, wild family. So my father

died in 2015 of alcoholism. ⁓ So my dad was an alcoholic, but he was my guy, right? My mom and I kind of have always not really got each other very well. Like I wouldn't say my mom's my person, but my dad was absolutely my person. And so that has been difficult for me. Not only to watch him die from alcoholism, it is awful.

by the way, awful, but just the loss. He actually died of alcoholism before I got sober. So I've always kind of felt like I'm doing this for both of us because not a day in my life do I remember my dad sober. I have an older sister and older brother. Neither of them have my biology. So neither of them suffer with this disease. And my mom, the journey in that relationship has been a wild ride.

Carrie McNulty (19:26)
Mm-hmm.

Jennifer Chase (19:50)
I have felt woefully under protected by my mom and there's been some difficult things that have happened in that relationship throughout my life. And so we're really trying to come to a place of peace now, which I'm very, very, very grateful for. I'm not sure, not here to say 12 steps, but I'm not sure without the 12 steps, I would have been able to find some peace with my mom. So I'm very, very grateful for that. My little family, my husband and I have been married for

Carrie McNulty (20:12)
Wow.

Jennifer Chase (20:18)
29 years coming up in August and somehow, by the grace of God, we made it through this thing. I still don't know how we did that. And my daughter is a normie. She does not suffer from this disease. And my son, like I said earlier, he struggles with substance and still to this day struggles with, I he's not using, but he still, I think, wants the solution.

Carrie McNulty (20:20)
Ooh, nice.

Jennifer Chase (20:45)
He still wants something to be that solution. That's not substance that gets him in trouble. the last eight years of me getting sober have really changed the dynamic in every single member of every single family. the relationships have changed so significantly.

Carrie McNulty (21:05)
Do you think

your healing changed the way that you operate in your family system? Do you think that you getting the help you needed then changed?

Jennifer Chase (21:16)
9,000%. Yeah, 9,000%. Because so I was the black sheep of my family. And that version of that person no longer served me when I got sober. Right. And I realized it was everybody was using that as a like they all used me as the black sheep. And I was no longer willing to play that role within the family system.

Carrie McNulty (21:38)
Yeah.

Jennifer Chase (21:39)
And so when I stopped playing it, everybody had to change. ⁓

Carrie McNulty (21:43)
right because there can't

be a golden child if there's no black sheep right so it changes that dynamic.

Jennifer Chase (21:47)
Yeah, yeah.

We fit beautifully into those family systems. so, yeah, I would say that it's absolutely, for sure it's changed for me, but it's also changed. My sister has done so much healing, not because I got sober, but just I think it's our time. It's our time, right? It's our time to heal and it's our time to sort of walk through some of the challenges of our childhood. She has done an amazing amount of healing. And so those relationships have really blossomed and grown.

Carrie McNulty (22:16)
wonderful. What was your time like? you I'm interested in what you said that you wanted to learn how to use like a gentle lady, which is usually the goal that people will go under you have thinking like, I don't want to totally stop, but I just want to figure out like how to get a handle on this. what do I do that? How did that shift for you? Like, what was the process like for you going in with that goal and coming out realizing that like, that's not a thing?

Jennifer Chase (22:28)
Yeah. Yeah.

Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. I had

no intention to stop using, like none. I wanted to get this thing under control, but we weren't going to stop, right? Like it was the only thing, like it was my security blanket. so I went into treatment and, what happened was I'm sure you've heard the opposite of addiction is connection. and that's

Carrie McNulty (22:48)
Yeah.

Yes.

Jennifer Chase (23:01)
my story, right? I went into inpatient and there were these five or six beautiful human beings that I felt closer to probably in three or four days than I did most other human beings that I had ever met. Like they understood my shame, right? They understood that I am not who I am when I'm high. Like I'm not, I'm not the kind of mother that I had been. That's not who I was as a human being deep down, right? And they understood all of these things.

And I felt closer to them than I literally had most anybody in my whole life. And so I started to build this connection. And one of them was like, hey, I had relapse, but I want to go back to this outpatient program. Do you guys want to go with me? And I was like, well, I knew that was an abstinence-based program. And I'm like, well, that's not really the goal. But what I wanted more than substance was connection.

Carrie McNulty (23:47)
We

Jennifer Chase (23:57)
What I wanted more than substance was this feeling of being loved and seen and appreciated and valued. And so I just took a risk and I just jumped and I went with them. what happened after I started to work the steps and being part of this outpatient program, I really regained a connection to my higher power, which I had completely let go of.

Carrie McNulty (23:57)
I want to do.

Jennifer Chase (24:24)
somebody that sexually abused pretty much, felt like my higher power had left me at the doorstep when I was born, right? And so it was just a journey really to connect with other people, to connect with my higher power. And then finally, I think the last thing I connected with was myself. And then all of a sudden, abstinence was exactly what I wanted because I wanted to live life in high definition. I wanted to

Carrie McNulty (24:28)
long answer.

Jennifer Chase (24:52)
I wanted to see all the birds and all the grass and all the sky. just wanted because all of a sudden I had this value. I believed that I was worth it, which was something that I had never experienced up until that moment.

Carrie McNulty (25:02)
Hmm.

Yeah, it sounds like you wanted to fully be present for your life and knew that you couldn't do that if you were still using, right?

Jennifer Chase (25:10)
Yeah. Yeah. And

I wanted to contribute to my children's wellness. Like I live every single day as a living amends to them. And I do my best. I do the work that I do. I serve, I do all these things because I'm trying to make the world a little better because I took from them for most of their childhood.

And so the healing journey for the three of us, specifically my two kids and myself, has been a wild ride. But that's really what gets me up every single day to try to do better.

Carrie McNulty (25:46)
Do you feel like it's healing for the younger part of you that did not get that relationship with your parents to be able to work on repairing all the time with your kids? Do you feel like that's healing for that younger part of you?

Jennifer Chase (26:00)
for sure, because that was the version I always wanted to be, right? That was the version I was like, don't, when I say I wasn't gonna be like my parents or I wasn't gonna be an alcoholic or whatever, really that's what I meant, right? Was that I wanted to be this healed version of myself, but I was not prepared at that time. I didn't have the life experience to be able to be that version of myself. But I think about that little girl a lot, right?

There's inside of me, there's the, that little girl, there's the critic, and then there's the protector. And oftentimes I have to have little side conversations with each of them. Like, you no longer need to be primary, right? Like the, the grown ass version of me has got this. Um, but I, yeah. And sometimes they try to step forward a little bit and I'm like, we're good. I need you, I need you to stay back. I, yeah.

Carrie McNulty (26:28)
Mm-hmm. Mm-hmm.

Right.

Yeah, you can trust me. I've got it.

course.

And they really just step forward when you're with your family because

that's how you survived it then, right? So it's like, just sort of happens, you know? That's why I was like, did they trigger you still? Like, how do you manage that? Because I'm curious.

Jennifer Chase (26:59)
They absolutely do still put it

in. The hardest thing I've had to do of late is my sister and I have had a conversation. We were talking about my mom, but I had to set a boundary with my sister, my big sister, right? And it was one of those things where I was just like, just grasping enough courage to just spit it out. And it didn't...

go over super well because it's not how we have ever done it. It's just not the norm we're learning. But it was the scariest thing I've ever done in recent years was to set this boundary with my sister. So for sure, they trigger me, without a doubt. And then that's when I have to say, the grown ass version of me has got this. I don't need the protector to show up.

Carrie McNulty (27:25)
you

Yeah.

Wow.

Jennifer Chase (27:47)
But I do think about that little girl all the time. I hope and pray I can finally be the adult in the room that she needed, that she never found.

Carrie McNulty (27:59)
that is the ultimate goal, when you come from a family system that is not a healthy family system. And it sounds like in your own way, you made it to what your goal was. It just wasn't the road that you anticipated. ⁓

Jennifer Chase (28:12)
Yeah, but

when I think about my higher power also, think it's so clear to me that I had to go through each of these experiences in my life to be where I am today and to be able to help the people that I am helping today, right? Like being able to help coach families and navigate them through this is such a gift. I mean, ⁓ it's a gift of, ⁓ because it heals a version of me. It's like, okay,

Carrie McNulty (28:26)
Yeah.

Jennifer Chase (28:39)
I experienced those things at childhood so that I can sit with you knee to knee and help navigate this, right? If I didn't have that experience, I don't think I would be able to be helpful or to even have the heart to do it. And so I look back now and I'm like, okay, so much gratitude in the journey, even though I obviously wouldn't have chosen it.

Carrie McNulty (29:01)
No, no, I think there's a line between saying, wow, I'm really glad that happened to me. What a gift. And if I hadn't, I wouldn't be where I am now. And you really, I'm guessing, have the ability to sit with people in this authentic way because you've experienced it and you know what it's like to have people give you that empathy and that understanding and see you and know what you're capable of. And so that's a very real thing to be able to give that to somebody else.

Jennifer Chase (29:28)
When I think the beauty of helping people from, again, the perspective that I have, see how they can contribute to the solution or how you are or will continue to contribute to the problem, right? And that's what's so rewarding for me is to help a mama that is so codependent and so twisted up in this whole thing to see, okay,

You're doing that because of your own fears and you're doing that to make yourself feel better, but really contributing to the solution is maybe this other path over here.

Carrie McNulty (29:57)
you

I'm curious if you could tell me, because you get to work with all types of people, you have your own experience. I'm sure that there are people you went through treatment with who had a harder time getting it to stick. if somebody says, I've literally tried every single thing, I've gone to rehab this many times, I've gone to detox this many times, I've done 16 different IOPs, nothing seems to be sticking. Not that I'm like, pressure's on, Jennifer, tell people exactly how to do this, but.

I have that experience. am a therapist and I, you know, I do not primarily treat addiction, but I treat eating disorders and a lot of times they go hand in hand.

Jennifer Chase (30:41)
They are the same actually, yeah, in a lot of ways. Yeah,

I think for me, this is what I would say. I would say, have you thought or considered that substance is the problem, right? Because if you think that substance is the problem and you go to 15,000 IOPs and nine inpatients and you've done it all, you've had four sponsors, you go to 90 and 90, you do all the things.

but you are thinking that substance is the problem, then you're always going to fall short, right? It isn't until we recognize that substance is not the problem, it is the solution to the problem. So I have to then find new solutions, new coping skills to the problem. The other thing I would ask is,

And I've asked this question to quite a few people, is like, well, I've done, is the fifth time I'm at this treatment facility. And I will ask them point blank, have you ever gone inside your cave?

Carrie McNulty (31:39)
Mm.

Jennifer Chase (31:41)
And they're like, well, no, not really. Well, you're better, right? If you want to stay sober long term. And really I'm saying the same thing because the problem is inside of your cave. Right? The problem is the reasons why I use substance were waiting for me inside of that cave. And so up until I had enough courage to walk in there and take a seat, I would continue to only have one coping skill.

and continue to only use substance. And this can be true. I mean, you brought up obviously eating disorders. This can be true for compulsive eating or this can be true for gambling, right? Any compulsive behavior. I'm doing it for a reason. And until I find a different coping skill and until I find a real solution to the problem, then we're just going to always fall back into that cycle.

Carrie McNulty (32:25)
Right. Yeah.

And that makes

a lot of sense.

And I think the avoidance of discomfort, it's always so interesting to me because that's really what it's all about. But people aren't living comfortable lives in their addiction or in whatever they're dealing with, you know, mental health wise. it's, it's like when somebody first tries to stop and it's the same with eating disorders. It's like, you've been numbing out so long that the smallest thing is like, you're so emotionally vulnerable and raw. It's like walking around without skin on. it's so, it feels so intolerable to

Jennifer Chase (32:58)
Yes.

Carrie McNulty (33:08)
people. So it's like, I don't want to feel these feelings.

Jennifer Chase (33:13)
And I think as

addicts, are more pain adverse than most. A lot of people say to me, like, thought life was supposed to be easy. Like it was easy for everybody else and it was just hard for me. Right? Like it speaks more to this kind of square peg in the round hole. And I say this to people all the time. I'm like, look, recovery is hard, right? Getting up in every day and making my bed, because somebody told me to when I don't want to, hard.

Carrie McNulty (33:17)
Yes.

Jennifer Chase (33:42)
Right? Like journaling when I don't want to and doing all of the things that I need to do, it's hard. But what is also incredibly hard is being a drug addict. So I get to wake up every single day now and choose my hard that's just the life is hard. It's hard for everybody. But for some reason, addicts specifically think that it's not supposed to be hard. It's just hard for them.

Carrie McNulty (34:07)
Yeah, or that it's happening to them on purpose like a punishment instead of seeing that, you know, everybody is having a harder time too.

Jennifer Chase (34:10)
Yeah. Yeah. Yeah.

Carrie McNulty (34:16)
What are some of the biggest misconceptions about addictions and families?

Jennifer Chase (34:23)
I think for sure. I've spoken, I think a little bit about the addiction piece, which is that substance is the problem, right? I think that that is the biggest misconception. I think another misconception is that your addicted loved one is purposely trying to cause pain on you, right? If they want to stop, they would, right? There's a lot of, if they loved you enough, then they would stop.

Carrie McNulty (34:42)
Yes.

if they love their kids enough, they would.

Jennifer Chase (34:49)
If they loved

you enough, they would be home at midnight when you told them to be home at midnight, right? A lot of those misconceptions. I can tell you with every, like my entire being in chest, it has nothing to do with love. It has nothing to do with the fact that they don't or do love you, right? It is a disease. And I tell people, if I were drowning in a lake holding my daughter and I'm in the middle of addiction, I would step on her head to get to

Carrie McNulty (35:04)
you

Jennifer Chase (35:16)
to oxygen, right? And that's how it felt like as an addict. I felt like I would step on her head to get to oxygen, not because I don't love her, but because that's how, that's, that's just how it felt. Right? so a lot of those misconceptions about a disease, the thing about the family that I, that I hope that your listeners can hear is there's not an addict on this planet.

Carrie McNulty (35:30)
Mm-hmm.

Jennifer Chase (35:43)
that got sober before they were uncomfortable enough to get sober. There just isn't, right? ⁓ if you think about this, like let's say your addict's pain tolerance is like an eight, which we have high pain tolerances. We're taking substance, right? So I'm taking painkillers. I got a high pain tolerance, right? And so let's say your addict's pain tolerance is an eight and the mama's pain tolerance is like a two, right?

Carrie McNulty (35:48)
Mm-hmm. Mm-hmm. No reason to. Why would they change what they're doing? Mm-hmm.

Mm-hmm.

Jennifer Chase (36:13)
So you get closer to a two and she can't handle it anymore. So she rescues and enables and makes it not so hard for him, but he's never going to get to an eight, ever. And what we think as family, it's like, how could he possibly wanna be homeless? Like I'm paying for his hotel room, but like, I just don't understand. Like how could he possibly wanna be homeless? Well, he's at a three.

Carrie McNulty (36:26)
Mm-mm.

Jennifer Chase (36:43)
He needs to get to an eight, but think about the courage it takes for that mama to back off a little bit and let their child, I mean, you deal with fear at two, but imagine at six. Imagine at seven and a half, right, before the eight. And so what I would tell families is for all things holy, you gotta let him get to an eight. Like there's no way around it.

There's not an addict on this planet that got sober if their pain tolerance was an eight out of two.

And I realized, even after I got sober, I realized like I wasn't letting my son get to an eight because that felt like I was going to die. I was going to die. And that's what I do for a living, right? Is really help people navigate that two to an eight, give them the support that they need and allow them to really start contributing to the solution and

build and learn the courage that it takes in order to let your addicted loved one get there.

Carrie McNulty (37:51)
How does that go hand in hand with codependency?

Jennifer Chase (37:54)
⁓ well, mean, codependency is, I say this too, codependency is a compulsive behavior exactly like addiction is a compulsive behavior. So I use substance when I'm, you know, getting uncomfortable. I would use substance. It would make me feel better. Right? So family members that don't use substance, but use codependency, they're

Carrie McNulty (38:06)
Mm-hmm.

Jennifer Chase (38:19)
codependent, they're trying to control outcomes, right? They're trying to fix and they're trying to change and they're trying to do all of these things is exactly the same thing as using a substance for me. It's doing the same thing in my brain, right? And I think it's an important

Carrie McNulty (38:35)
Mm-hmm.

Jennifer Chase (38:39)
thread to put through if you will, because it helps with empathy and compassion. So I can tell, I will ask a mama like, are you feeling powerless right now? And they're like, my gosh, ⁓ I feel like I can't breathe. I feel like, right? And I'm like, that's what your addicted loved one feels like too, right? That powerlessness. And to be able to bridge that sometimes helps with building empathy and compassion for what both sides are going through.

I'm both. I'm a double dipper, if you will. I'm a recovering codependent and a recovering addict. So I understand, and people ask me which one is harder. And I will tell you, for me, being a codependent was harder for me. And let me tell you why. Because I realize that I'm powerless and I've surrendered and I have, you in my own addiction. But there's this itty bitty amount of control that I have in the sense of

Carrie McNulty (39:09)
You

Jennifer Chase (39:31)
I can do the work today. I control whether I do the work today that will help keep me sober tomorrow. Right? It's an itty bitty amount of control. You are so powerless over whether your child is using substance, like just powerless, like just beyond. ⁓ And for me, that has been more challenging than actually recovering myself.

Carrie McNulty (39:40)
Mm-hmm.

Yeah, I would see that. mean, because we can't control what other people do. And you're right. You've gotten to the place where you know how to keep yourself in a safe place. But you can't give him that.

Jennifer Chase (40:05)
No, no. And he recovers differently than I do. And he struggles with some mental health and he doesn't want to be medicated. And so he does this a lot, right? And every time he starts going here, I feel like my heart's coming out and I have to then work my way back and start doing some cave work again, Because I just can just watch it.

Carrie McNulty (40:15)
Yeah.

Jennifer Chase (40:31)
I just, that's all that I can do is, is watch it and love him and stand next to him and tell him that, you know, I love him. But, but my, the core of me thinks quickly, like, well, go, go fix it for him. Go fix that hard for him. Make that go away. and I realized I'm just actually cutting him off at the knees because I'm teaching him learned helplessness. And so he doesn't think he can do it himself, right? He doesn't have the confidence to do it himself.

Carrie McNulty (40:56)
Yeah. Yeah.

Jennifer Chase (40:59)
And yes.

Carrie McNulty (40:59)
Confidence is a great word, absolutely.

Yeah, he never has to, he never

Jennifer Chase (41:03)
So it's wrong. Yep.

Carrie McNulty (41:05)
But again, I can't imagine how hard that would be, especially because you know where it goes, right? mean, via seeing what happened to your father and you just, it's your lived experience. So it's gotta be hard to be like, okay.

Jennifer Chase (41:20)
And I always

say things like in an effort to not try to control outcomes, I'm like, and it's his choice to not take medication and I honor that choice, but he doesn't have like a safety net, right? He doesn't keep him, he doesn't, there's nothing keeping him from the toilet bowl, if you will, right? From cycling the toilet bowl. And so I say to him, right, you don't have a safety net, so I just need you to be aware, like you got to do all the things in order to pull yourself out. But that's the hardest part, I think.

Carrie McNulty (41:31)
Mm-hmm.

Jennifer Chase (41:49)
Yeah. He's doing great though. just bought a house. He has a baby. Yeah. He's really, really thriving and it's so fun to watch. Even, you know, even when he struggles, it's still fun to watch him and fun might be not the right word, but watch him overcome because every single time he does it, he gets more confidence that he can do it.

Carrie McNulty (41:50)
Does he? that's wonderful.

Yeah.

can do this. can what his pattern is and he can figure it out. And, you know, hopefully the more good he keeps bringing in, the more worthwhile it be for him to stay in this place. You know? Man, it's gotta be, I can't imagine what it's like. I don't have kids anyway, but I can't imagine what it's like to have kids and then be like, okay, I know that you deal with these things and I'm just gonna sit here and watch you do it and hope that what you've learned is something you can.

Jennifer Chase (42:14)
Yep. Yep.

I think that's.

Carrie McNulty (42:40)
You can do.

Jennifer Chase (42:42)
And I think too, if I were to be able to tell people that don't either have addiction anywhere in their lives or don't understand it, I've never met more a group of more compassionate, empathetic, loving, deep feeling people, right? A lot of the times we use substance because we feel so deep, right? We feel like we love harder than a lot of the rest of the world. And so,

I just think it's so important when we're talking about breaking stigma of addiction to understand, even the gentleman that's sitting on the street corner who struggles with addiction has a story. He uses substance for his story. I use substance for me. I look differently. I've been able to, all the things, but at the core of us, we are the same, which is we sought substance as a solution to the story.

Carrie McNulty (43:25)
Yes.

Jennifer Chase (43:36)
And as soon as we can start meeting people there with this air of compassion and empathy, ⁓ then we can really start changing the conversation about addiction.

Carrie McNulty (43:49)
could not agree with you more. mean, that's part of why I'm doing this podcast is just the idea that we need to start seeing people all as human beings that have their own stories and not just the people that you know in your own life. Those aren't the only people that deserve your empathy and compassion. It's every single person who exists deserves it just by nature of the fact that they exist, not because they do a certain job or they have a certain standing or it's because we all deserve that.

Jennifer Chase (44:11)
Yes. Yes.

Carrie McNulty (44:17)
as basic thing. And if you are a person listening who feels the opposite of that, and this is provoking something in you, I would invite you to look at that. If you don't feel like people deserve empathy and compassion just because they are human, and that rubs you the wrong way, I invite you to take a look at that internally. Because it's...

Jennifer Chase (44:37)
For sure. And I think

so often because there's so many things about addiction that are off-putting, right? Like, you know, a lot of addicts in active use, they steal and they, right, and they say things that they are mean and they all like, it's not a good look, right? And I validate that. Absolutely validate that. What is at the core of them is pain. The core of them is most of us trauma, right? ⁓

Carrie McNulty (45:01)
Yeah.

For sure.

For sure.

Jennifer Chase (45:06)
experiences.

And oftentimes the people that created the trauma in our lives are part of those people that are judging us for it. But I say that because if I were to die tomorrow, my prayer is that somebody would say, well, she did her darnedest to break the stigma of addiction because all addicts have chosen substance as a solution to something.

And then it just got away from us. And that's the truth, right? It was never like, I never stood at this Y on the road and somebody said, Jennifer, can still hold this thing together, right? You got to go right, but you can still hold this thing. If you go left, you're going to burn it down. Like I never had that moment. By the time I knew that I was going to burn it down, there was no going back. And I started using substance because I just wanted to be okay inside.

Carrie McNulty (45:47)
Thank

Yeah, was too late.

Jennifer Chase (45:58)
But I didn't want to hurt anyone. That was never the goal. Now, did it happen? It did. It absolutely did happen. But I just constantly want to help people see addicts from a different lens.

Carrie McNulty (46:12)
Tell me more about what you do in your coaching and who do you like to work with? Is it primary, primarily families? Is it also people dealing with addiction? Is it both? What?

Jennifer Chase (46:22)
Yeah, my primary group are families. I worked for seven years in the treatment field and was just ready, I think more than anything, to kind of step outside and work with families. I will work with an addict if they are out, if they are like contemplative or preparation stages of change. And for your audience or listeners that don't know what I'm talking about, like somebody that's ready and motivated to do this thing, right? ⁓

Carrie McNulty (46:48)
Yes, not just somebody

who crosses their mind every now and then. They need to be ready to take steps. Yeah.

Jennifer Chase (46:54)
And

I won't work with an addict if their mama thinks they're ready, pushing them into being ready, but they're not really ready. Right? Like that's not, I would rather work with the mama to find peace, whether her addicted loved one ever gets sober or not, because that's the beauty of this thing. I can have peace whether my son is sober today or not.

Carrie McNulty (47:06)
Mm-hmm.

Jennifer Chase (47:18)
Right? Not to say that's not going to be hard, not to say there aren't feelings and there's all of the things, but I can live in a place of peace whether or not my addicted loved one ever gets sober or not. And so that's really the journey that I love to go on with families. The truth is I don't love to work even with a family member that's like, I'll come to you, but will you somehow get my child sober? Right? I can't do that.

Carrie McNulty (47:18)
Yes.

⁓ I think that happens a lot.

Jennifer Chase (47:44)
I think we can get to a point where you can help contribute to the solution of it, because I've seen that all the time. But I will, if somebody is ready to look at how their disease has impacted other people, will, I will work with that group as well. And we do a couple of things. So we do the individual sessions. We also do coaching calls twice a week, which has been super fun because we have people all over the country that are coming together and

Carrie McNulty (47:50)
to me.

Jennifer Chase (48:11)
One of the things that was so transformative to me, I'd been sober for about nine months, I think, and I was on my way to a meeting and I said goodbye to my husband or whatever. he said to me as I was walking out, I'm so glad that you have your people. I'm not sure what I'm supposed to do after I walked through this for the last 14 years. And I just looked at him, right? And it was so impactful to me that one of the things that I'm trying to do is create this community because

Having a loved one that's an addict is as isolating and shameful and exhausting and heart wrenching as being an addict themselves, right? And he wasn't wrong. When I got sober, I found my people and I got sober with my people and he didn't have that experience. And so what I'm trying to do is create that experience for the family members as well. And so,

Carrie McNulty (48:57)
Mm-hmm.

Yeah.

Jennifer Chase (49:06)
We have people all over the country that are coming together in these coaching calls to kind of find their tribe, right? Find their group of people. ⁓

Carrie McNulty (49:14)
I love that. It's like caretakers,

right? It's like people that need the support too after being with somebody through their illness, no matter what that illness might be. Yeah, that's amazing.

Jennifer Chase (49:19)
Yes.

And

then the third thing I do is ⁓ twice a year we do ⁓ wellness retreats. And so again, people from different parts of the country, from where I am, we all come together and get to spend three or four days together in person, because sometimes we're doing it over Zoom. And so that's also super cool.

Carrie McNulty (49:43)
That's really

I have a couple of questions. One is about boundaries because you're working with families. So do you find that it's really hard for people who have not been able to set boundaries with their loved ones? Do you find resistance in that way with their coaching? People can't see Jennifer's face right now, but she's making your face.

Jennifer Chase (50:03)
Yes, they indeed do have some resistance. I tell this story. I have a client who's, she's probably in her seventies. She has, I think her 45 year old son somewhere around there living in her house with her two grandchildren. And the initial boundary was you can't use substance, but then he starts using substance and what are you going to do? You're going to kick him out and the grandkids, right? Like all of the panic. so

Carrie McNulty (50:27)
No.

Jennifer Chase (50:31)
We broke it down. So my whole philosophy and boundaries is I try not to live a rigid life anymore in sobriety, but for me, boundaries are super rigid and need to be super rigid, especially when we're talking about addicts, because if you crack that door open ever so slightly, I'm going to have that thing wide open before you know it, right? So it's important to stay rigid with boundaries, very black and white.

Carrie McNulty (50:47)
and ⁓

Jennifer Chase (50:55)
So with her, we just walked it back to the point where the boundary that she felt comfortable sticking to 100 % of the time was, I'm not going to do your laundry if your socks are not untangled. That was where she could start, right? That's where we could start. That's where she was like, I can hold to that one 100%. I'm like, great, we're gonna start with that.

Carrie McNulty (51:08)
Thank

Alright.

It's a place to start. Okay, yeah.

Jennifer Chase (51:23)
what I was talking about with my son too, right? It gave her the confidence to say, okay, that wasn't so hard. I can maybe do something. So the next one was a little harder and she was like, nope, I can do that 100%. So then she did the next boundary, right? And that's the idea with boundaries because we all go in, we have a lot of shoulds about what we should be doing.

Carrie McNulty (51:28)
Hmm?

Jennifer Chase (51:45)
And I would like to just throw all of those out because what we should be doing and what we are capable of doing right now in this moment are not the same things oftentimes. So let's take the shoulds out and come down and find the boundary that I can hold to. I mean, think if I didn't, if my clients weren't resistant to boundaries when they came to me, they probably wouldn't be struggling the way that they are in their life. Yeah. And of course boundaries have to do with fear, right?

Carrie McNulty (52:08)
Right, they wouldn't need your help. Yeah. That would be so funny.

Yeah, yeah, well, the consequences. think a lot of times parents are so afraid of letting their kids make mistakes. And when we're talking about addiction, obviously the stakes are high, the consequences are high. But in general, think, you know, that's amazing that she was able to start there, I guess I'll just say.

Jennifer Chase (52:15)
Yeah.

Carrie McNulty (52:32)
I love that you're meeting her where she is because I think then it evokes shame for people when somebody says to them, well, you should just kick him out of the house or you should just, you know, whatever. It's like, she doesn't already know that she's struggling with that, but you being like, okay, let's just find something. One thing that you can hold him to and she.

Jennifer Chase (52:50)
And I tell my clients, look, maybe

your child should live in your house for now, right? Like what if, and we may do the work for a long time, like why are they there? Let's talk about the fear of why they're there. What are you afraid is gonna happen, right? We do all of this work long before it's ever, you can't live in my house anymore. Because I don't think that that's helpful if you're just gonna go in and say, well, your kids shouldn't live with you and you kick them out, but yet you're.

Carrie McNulty (53:02)
Thank

Mm-hmm.

Jennifer Chase (53:19)
you're not feeling it inside, right? You have no peace about it inside. And to me, that's just counterintuitive to finding true and actual peace.

Carrie McNulty (53:28)
just to reiterate for people listening is the boundaries are things that you're putting in place for yourself. They're not expectations on other people, right? So if it's so an example, yeah.

Jennifer Chase (53:36)
Protecting your peace. Boundaries

are protecting your peace, not punishing somebody else.

Carrie McNulty (53:42)
Exactly. So if her

son doesn't do what he's supposed to do with the laundry, then the consequence of that is that she doesn't do the laundry for him and she holds herself to that. It's not...

Jennifer Chase (53:48)
Yep. Yep. And her piece is because,

because what was stealing her peace with her hands was unfolding his socks. ⁓ This is the whole conversation. She's like, I get mad. I lose my piece. I said, okay, let's start there. Right. So again, protecting her peace not punishing him for not doing what she says to do.

Carrie McNulty (53:58)
Yeah.

Yeah.

And all that we've talked about, is there anything that I've missed asking you or something you really wanted to share that we didn't get a chance to cover?

Jennifer Chase (54:26)
That's a great question. I think if I could share anything from my heart, would be, we got to take the, and we spoke about this a little bit, the shoulds, like my addict should be doing this. We got to take those things away, right? If I have an expectation on somebody, I tell people the least favorite word in the English language for me is the word potential because

If I'm saying that this person didn't reach their potential, I'm basically saying what I believe their life should look like. Right? ⁓ And so I needed to do the work of like accepting and loving.

my son for exactly who he was, not the ideal version that I tried to raise him as, but his authentic version. And that was a lot of work for me, right? So let's say you don't like tattoos in your family and your authentic version of your child is tattooed from head to toe, right? That's a you problem, not a them problem. and so those are the things like we've got to come together and just love, just be at a place of peace and acceptance. And

you can do that and still have boundaries around your piece, which are, love you and you can have 9 million tattoos, but I'm not going let you have one. You're not going to bring a tattoo artist in my home and get one. Right? No? Like that's the boundary. Like whatever. That's just an example, but you understand what I'm saying. And we can do all of that and all be peaceful.

Carrie McNulty (55:49)
Yeah.

you can be the loving, supporting parent that still has boundaries. And, and I really like your message about accepting what is authentic, because it sounds like it took you a while to figure out who your authentic self was, and trying to live up to expectations in order to not be like the people that you came from. And you finally found who you are. And so I want to give that to your kids.

Jennifer Chase (56:23)
Well, and I think

trying to be what the version of me that I thought they would like and love. Right? ⁓

Carrie McNulty (56:34)
Which is

so tough because that's just a losing game no matter what.

Jennifer Chase (56:37)
it's a wildly

losing game. It's a wildly losing game for everybody, right? And that was the journey. And I think even for families to be able to really at the core of us accept our addicted loved one for who they are, right? There are people, I have clients that come from a pretty religious background that have a daughter who's LGBT.

Carrie McNulty (56:42)
Mm-hmm.

Jennifer Chase (57:04)
And that's been a journey, right? And I say to people, if you really want them to heal, if you really want them to thrive, if you really want this to be a safe place for them, that's where y'all got to start, right?

Carrie McNulty (57:19)
Yeah, but who

they are when they're living their authentic self sober is enough. Yeah, they may not be the person you thought they would be but that has to be enough and they have to really feel that from you.

Jennifer Chase (57:23)
is enough Yes.

Because

I can tell you as an addict, up and until that happens, I'm going to be high every single time around you. I'm either not going to be around you or I'm going to be high. Those are the only two options I have. There is no other option. So as a family, is, I call them dance floors, right? So if you think about your dance floor, let's say you waltz on your dance floor, right? As with your family.

Carrie McNulty (57:41)
Mm-hmm.

Yeah.

Jennifer Chase (57:59)
Well, I realized when I got sober that I hate waltzing. I always knew I hated waltzing, but I learned I'm not doing that anymore. And I decided I wanted to tango. So can you imagine when I try to get back on this dance floor and they're waltzing and I'm tangoing, right? But I can't waltz with you. I either am going to be on that dance floor and I'm going to be high when I waltz or I'm going to get off of it altogether.

Carrie McNulty (58:02)
Thank

Yeah, no we don't.

Mm-hmm.

Jennifer Chase (58:24)
And what I'm trying to help families do is can we all get off of this dance floor and learn a dance that works for each of us.

Carrie McNulty (58:24)
Mm-hmm.

Yes, it doesn't have to be exactly the same, it has to be interconnected in some way. It can't be just your way.

Jennifer Chase (58:35)
No.

And a lot of the time it is the sober loved one who is the pathfinder in finding this new dance floor and modeling, right? And sometimes it's the mama of the family, which is like, okay, I'm going to model what this looks like. I'm going to model the work I'm going to do. And hopefully when I make this path over to this other dance floor, y'all are going to come with me.

Carrie McNulty (59:06)
I love a good metaphor.

Jennifer Chase (59:08)
Yeah.

I think in pictures, so yeah.

Carrie McNulty (59:13)
Yeah, that's cool.

Well, I have loved having you on today and I think that all of my listeners will learn so much from you and I appreciate what the work you do and what you offer to people and just being a hope merchant for the fact that you can get to a place of recovery and then you can help others get there too.

Jennifer Chase (59:36)
It's the only thing that makes sense sometimes. Yeah. Well, I appreciate it. This has been a great conversation. I'm so grateful to have been here today.

Carrie McNulty (59:36)
So thanks.

Yeah, absolutely. I will be sure to put your information in the show notes, so if anybody is interested. Do you have certain states that you work in? Is it all across the country? If people want to reach out.

Jennifer Chase (59:56)
across the country.

For those people that are, I live in Idaho, so those people that are in Idaho can come in person, but I do work in every state. So, yep. Yep.

Carrie McNulty (1:00:08)
I'll be sure to put that in there so people can find you. For everybody listening, thank you so much ⁓ as always and I will be back in another couple weeks with another episode. So I will talk to you then.