Loving a Partner in Recovery 

Perip. Ep. 3 - Jessie Repeta on Loving a Partner in Recovery
Heather Lowe: Hi, babes. Listen up. You landed here at the Peripeteia podcast, and I'm so glad to have you enjoy these real girl talk conversations about the things that matter. From the ordinary to the extraordinary, and every plot twist in between, I welcome you. Life has a way of throwing us curveballs, and these are the stories of female resilience while navigating change with newfound purpose.
This is Peripatea. I'm so glad you're here. Let's embark on this journey together. Here we go!
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Heather Lowe: Hi, you guys. I have Jessie Repeta . with me. And I'm so excited. Our topic today is loving a partner in recovery. And as I tell Jessie all the Time, people ask me, How to do this and I never feel like I'm the right person because I was the one with the issue right that I'm never the right person to speak to this and I always say I don't know what my husband did or didn't do that worked or didn't work and I was often just very mad at him but here we have like such a loving partner of someone in recovery and I can't wait to dive into it and hear your side so thank you we're connected because we're in the Chicago area and we're both part of a Chicago alcohol free community you And, um, you know, you have interest in speaking about this.
So you're growing your, your audience and talking about it. And I just, I love following you. You're an absolute dynamo of a person, and I appreciate your openness and your husband's openness in speaking about this, and this is your first podcast, right?
Jessie Repeta: This is it, Heather. And what an absolute honor for this to be my first one.
I am. Your number one fan. I'm you might have to like restraining order me like I'm obsessed. I love everything that you do. I love the positivity and the warmth that you bring to everything that you do. And for people who just know Heather on, you know, this podcast or on Instagram or social media, Heather is that.
To her core, um, on the Chicago meeting that we both attend Chicago AF, we've heard people who are like, oh, I ran into Heather and it was like running into someone that I knew for 15 years, even though it was our first time meeting. So what an absolute privilege to be here and thank you for giving me an opportunity to.
Share my story and share my husband's story and, um, really hopefully help people out there and shine some light on this.
Heather Lowe: Absolutely. We all want to know how to do this, how to support somebody, right? And recovery. So our energy matches. That's why we're fast friends. I mean, I'm your number one fan too. And crazy, crazy.
Is that our energy? I did that in a group call, like I'm a tigger and we need tiggers and we need Eeyores and we need, you know, all kinds and we need a piglet too, but like we are tiggers. So yes, we're both pouncing, pouncing full of fun, fun, fun. Um, so definitely our energy matches. And it, it makes me laugh when people meet me and they're like, Oh, you're just like yourself, or you're just what I thought you were.
And I don't know if it's like the Midwest in me or being from Wisconsin. Like I wouldn't know how to be anything different. Even my friends are like, I know on social media, you do this, but is it true? Like, do you really like those drinks or whatever? Yes,
Jessie Repeta: you
Heather Lowe: know, I love it.
Jessie Repeta: I know. I absolutely love it.
Well, and you saw me the other night I tried one and I was like, I wouldn't run out and buy this again. You're like, I feel the same. Like, I just can't help but I couldn't dim myself if I tried. I truly couldn't. It just is. I'm always on full blast.
Heather Lowe: Right, exactly. And maybe the coasts pretend to be something different or something, but Midwest is so like, we are who we are, right?
We just are. That's exactly it. We're wholesome.
So tell me, tell me your story. So where did you meet your husband? How did this begin? Do you have a meet cute story?
Jessie Repeta: We do. We have a, I, you know, when you hear the whole story and for everyone listening, you might say, this does not sound like a fairy tale, but I promise it's exactly that.
Um, my husband and I, we worked together. We worked at a software company and, um, for a long time we were co workers, um, he actually was teaching the class that when I joined the company he was, um, teaching and I was learning and we worked and traveled the country together. Um, so we're really good friends, we're co workers and we just had this energy and this connection together where it was.
the perfect team dynamic. I mean, we're, we're Chicago. So it was like Pippin and Jordan. Like we just knew where the other person was going to be, what they had going on. Working together with my husband was so easy and seamless. And I was in a relationship at the time, and he was in a relationship at the time.
And both of those relationships fizzled. And, and, you know, we, uh, we decided to, you know, say, ah, there's kind of something here. Should we give this a shot? and so we started dating in 2018 and. It was the best time we, like I said, we were traveling all over the United States and not just like the fun places like we went to L.
A., we went to Seattle, we did all of the fun stuff, but we were also in like. middle of nowhere, Ohio, right? Or like stranded at the airport with no way to get home and it's Friday night and it's like, well, okay, I guess we'll just figure something out. Um, and boy, did we love to party together. Um, we love to have a more than a few drinks.
Um, we were young, we had no responsibilities and we had this beautiful, beautiful thing called an expense plan from work. So, you know, it didn't matter if we were at the airport Chili's that was open at, you know, 8 a. m. on a Monday. Or if we were, you know, out at some baseball stadium we'd go to or some dinner somewhere fancy because we were working, we had this beautiful card where we could party and go crazy and everything was free and we just had a really great time.
Heather Lowe: I hear you. I totally relate to that. Absolutely. So first of all, fun that you got to know each other and build this friendship before it turned into an inter office romance. Like, and then the taboo of that, how also exciting I would say. And then, um, an expense account and traveling. And like, it's almost part of the job, right?
To go out wine and dine, to have fun, to take clients to a game or have a happy hour or any of those things. And you were young. and just having a good time together.
Jessie Repeta: We were young and having the best time together. And it was exactly what you said. It was the expectation. There was, you know, and we had great co workers that were young with us and It was just, like I said, fun.
And there seemed to be no repercussions to anything that we were doing at the time.
Heather Lowe: that's what you're supposed to do, right? You were right on par there with young and living your young corporate partying lives. When did it turn into more, um, like you decided to get married after that? Yeah,
Jessie Repeta: so we started dating in 2018.
And then, you know, probably in 2019, early 2019, we, I bought a house, knowing that he was kind of going to do the roommate situation with me. And we really just started to build our lives together. At the end of 2019. So we're talking November timeframe. My husband got really, really sick. And if you're anything like me, if your husband is anything like mine or men in general, sorry, guys, I got to give you a little shot here, but when men get sick, like women get sick, right?
That's Heather. So my husband is sick. It's like five days later and I'm like, okay, dude, like we, we got to get, get over this. That's we've done enough of the sick thing. It's time to get over it. And he's, you know, gets out of bed and he's trying to do things and I'm like, You really, you don't look good.
Something's not right here. We need to go to the doctor. So we're on our way to the doctor and we're at the stop sign outside of our house to the left. We can drive to the hospital, which is pretty close to our house and to the right is, is the doctor's office. And I look at him. And he is sunken in and thin and like pale as all get out and I'm like, we're just going to go to the hospital.
Something is not right here. I just felt it in my bones. We went to the hospital and he ended up in the hospital for about 90 days and he had had his lungs collapsed. He had lost all of this weight. They had no clue what was wrong. They were close to putting him on a ventilator.
There was all of these, what could it be? What couldn't it be? And there was this little article that came out that my dad had sent me in about January about the sickness that was going around. And he goes, do you think this is what John, your husband has? And I said, oh, I'll ask the doctors. And the doctors go, no, no, there's no way he's got that.
And, you know, COVID hit the world and a few months later, everything shut down and changed. So I always call my husband patient zero, um, he, uh, in like November of 2019. He ended up, like I said, 90 days in the hospital and ended up having both of his lungs resected. It was a major surgery, major recovery.
And shortly after, you know, he got out of the hospital, we ended up getting engaged. And shortly after that, getting married.
Heather Lowe: Oh my gosh, what a story. How were you feeling during those 90 days?
Jessie Repeta: I was terrified. terrified. Um, it's one thing to experience someone that you love so deeply in pain, but it's a whole nother thing when there's no answer.
When if you feel like you're on house or Grey's Anatomy, where they're just like, we've run all of the tests, we have no clue what's going on. He's just getting sicker and sicker. And you're like, what's the answer here? What do we do? So it was, the worst feeling in the entire world. Um, and, and we were very close through it, right?
It really solidified to me that this was my person. Um, and. One of the items that actually came up when we were in the hospital is, one of the doctors said, Do you vape? And my husband, you know, was kind of out of it at the time, and I said, No, you know, like, maybe every once in a while we'll smoke pot and vape, but like, I can count on a handful of times in the last few years that happened.
And I had left the room, and then when I came back in, the, my husband was asleep again, and the doctor said, you know, he did say that he does vape. And I kind of had this weird red flag moment where I was like, huh, that's weird that he said that. Like, yeah, he, he has vaped, but he doesn't vape. Right. And kind of made the excuse, and the doctor's like, well, no, he said he vapes.
And I was like, you must have misheard him. Okay, whatever. Because at one point they thought maybe it was some injuries to the lung because of vaping and e valley and some of those concerns. Um, so that was kind of red flag number one that I ignored myself or I was like, yeah, okay, doctor, no clue what you're talking about.
My husband doesn't vape. I'm around him all the time. Or my then boyfriend doesn't vape. Like I, I live with him. I think I'd know or notice that.
Heather Lowe: Yeah. A little bit of foreshadowing that you didn't know. Wow. So you felt helpless. And there was so much unknown there, but also felt like this was like, I love him.
I want to be, but I can't imagine life without him. And I want to be with him.
Jessie Repeta: Like it's exactly it. Yeah.
Heather Lowe: Well, and he, if there was any, I mean, you were already planning a life together, but it really solidified, like he's mine and I can't lose them. I imagine, imagine that's what you were thinking.
Jessie Repeta: It's exactly it.
That's exactly it. It was, it was a scary time. Um, but like most things in life. it happened to us for a reason, right? It made us stronger. And it's, you know, it's a, it was a big part of our relationship and, and really bringing us to a different level. I'd never been close to someone who was really stuck in that situation.
Um, and it was, it was, beautiful to be able to be there for somebody in that way, as hard as it was for me. Uh, my husband, and I'm sure we'll get into this, he had a very difficult upbringing. Both his, his mother left when he was very young, um, about 10 years old. His mother left. She suffers from substance use disorder and his dad is still active in his alcohol use disorder.
So he didn't really have anyone that he could count on, um, ever. Growing up and so to be able to give him that was a really beautiful thing for our relationship.
Heather Lowe: Yeah, so that was my next question. You led right into it. So like, were you going to work during the day and then going to visit him in the evenings?
And were you the caregiver as far as who the doctors were calling with test results and this and that? And or did he have family visiting? Was there others? How did that look for you?
Jessie Repeta: Yeah, so I was Working out of the hospital. I'm very fortunate that I work remote. So, um, at the time my work was this small company where I was working and they were so amazing.
They were like, do what you need to do. Take care of things. So most of the day is and, you know, nights I spent at the hospital. Um, I was constantly reminded by my mother and my sister, you got to take care of yourself as well. So heading home when I needed to, resting, recovering, but spending a majority of my day by his bedside.
Um, because his mother's not in the picture and his father is active in his addiction, um, My husband signed over all of the rights to me. So I was the decision maker. If anything happened, I was the one who's going to be making the decision, which was at the time we're boyfriend and girlfriend, obviously I knew how I felt about him, but it, you know, felt good.
I guess that he felt that way about me as well and trusted me and loved me to be able to do that. Um, and that was where I first got my. Glimpse into exactly how chaotic his family dynamic was. Mm-Hmm. Um, he had his parents trying to come over to the hospital to visit. But they had been drinking, right? So, um, moments where my husband's literally, it feels like on his deathbed and then somebody rolls in smelling like vodka, who's rude to the nursing staff.
And, it was a, it was something that I hadn't really experienced. Quite at that level, right? I, you know, have family members who maybe overindulged from time to time, but I had never seen somebody in such a serious situation where, you know, we wanted to be present and helping out somebody that we loved, not be able to cope in that way, um, and using in that way.
So it was, uh, it was my first glimpse, I think, into exactly what, Alcohol use disorder could look like
Heather Lowe: my mother in law says you marry the family. So that's your first glimpse of that.
Jessie Repeta: Ain't that the truth?
Heather Lowe: Yeah. Wow. So he, after 90 days, eventually gets, well, was it diagnosed as the Corona virus eventually?
Jessie Repeta: It was never fully diagnosed because he had his surgery before, like, everything really took off. We asked them to do, like, the labs on it and everything, but they're like, it's, there's just, they're not going to have a concrete answer. When we ask his pulmonologist, like, what does he think? He gives that doctor answer of, like, well, I can't say with certainty, but it sure looks like it was just a bad case of COVID.
Heather Lowe: Oh my gosh, which plenty of people, um, did die from, so, you know, wow. So he recovers from surgery and then comes home, and then you're like, I met your family, let's spend the rest of our life together.
Jessie Repeta: That's your first glimpse at how crazy I am. Are you still in? Yes. Yes, he, uh,
Heather Lowe: . So let's live out our lives together.
Jessie Repeta: Yes. A few days after his surgery, we actually ended up getting engaged. He had bought the ring before he got sick and everything. So he ends up proposing. Um, we get married, you know, 2020 September 2020. Um, we eloped downtown Chicago, beautiful wedding. it was just us drinking, having a good time. Just the two of us, we hired a photographer and yeah, that's, that's kind of the first half of our, our very long love story.
Heather Lowe: So he got well and you just went back to partying was like, okay, every we're all good. Now

Jessie Repeta: Exactly it. So, I was very aware that like, hey, any pop that we're going to smoke, which. From my understanding was every once in a while, truly once every like three months or so was my understanding of how often we were smoking at this point.
Um, I had said like, we can't do this. We can't smoke. It's not your lungs. It's just not going to be a great idea. I'm not going through this again. So I had kind of laid down the law, um, so to speak on my expectations there. And, um, He was in agreement and he was scared after everything that he went through.
Now my friends set up like a food train where they all bring you food. So fresh out of the hospital, you don't have to worry about cooking and doing things like that. And one of my friends brought over this beautiful lasagna dinner with salad and a bottle of red wine, um, which was my go to is a nice bottle of red.
and Flash forward and in talking with my husband, that was the, the fix that he needed. So what I'm kind of alluding to here, and I'll, I'll spoil my story up front is my husband had been hiding his marijuana usage from me from the minute we met, he had been. daily, actively smoking pot. Um, he had been doing so since college.
Um, he had started smoking prior to that in high school and had started drinking in high school, but it wasn't until college till it really became a habitual every single day, every single moment of every single day type of deal. Um, With vaping, tough to smell it. There were times where maybe I said, this seems a little fishy, but, uh, yeah, for the most part, I had no clue what was going on.
Heather Lowe: So you think you're on the same page, you're partying the same way, but really he's, specifically hiding that's had it because he doesn't want you to know does he feel shame embarrassment it's just out of control like now knowing what you know what were his he can't tell you he's gonna lose you
Jessie Repeta: so i think that that's what it was i think that it was This fear that if I'm open and honest with this person that they won't want anything to do with me.
Um, I don't think he thought that it was really problematic. I think that he thought it was a little bit more, but kind of on par with what people his age were doing, um, which is . Just not the case scenario, but that was his understanding. That was based on what he saw growing up based on what he saw at family gatherings or friend gatherings.
That's what people do. That was his expectation and his bar.
Heather Lowe: That is so interesting when we surround ourselves with people doing that. And even as a drinker, if I'm not the worst drinker, if there's a worst drinker, then it's normal, then that's my measurement of, Oh, I'm okay. Right.
Jessie Repeta: Exactly. That it's, I can get drunk.
I just don't have to be as drunk as that guy.
Heather Lowe: Right. Everybody around me is drunk. So I'm doing what everyone else does. is so obviously it's okay. So same with weed, right? I'm smoking the same as everybody else. I've got to have it just like everybody I've surrounded myself with.
Jessie Repeta: It's exactly it. So after lung surgery, John says, I can't smoke anymore.
It's not good for me. This is a conversation he's having internally. Friend brings over dinner, glass of red wine. John takes a sip. And he says, it was like, a light bulb went off. Bingo. He goes, Oh, that's what I was missing. That's my, that's exactly what I needed. And so for the next, so we got married in 2020.
So for the next two years, my husband hid his drinking from me where he was drinking daily to sometimes six beers a day, sometimes a entire bottle of whiskey a day. Um, and the number one question I usually get asked beyond how can I help my loved one is how did you not know? And you know, you know that your partner's maybe having a drink or maybe two drinks.
It's not like I didn't smell a beer on them. Or a glass of whiskey on him. I didn't know he was drinking a bottle. No clue. And boy, was he good at hiding it. Just like so many people with alcohol use disorder, right? You got to keep that, uh, you got to keep that addiction alive. And the best way to do it is to hide it.
Heather Lowe: Wow. Yeah. And so of course he was a master at what he was doing and you're not suspecting it. What happens then we're in your drink together. Sometimes still
Jessie Repeta: we drink together. We both were partying still from time to time in my mind, all of the time for him. Um, and so let's be clear. My, my big issue is. I ignored my own gut instincts.
There were certainly times where I was like, he's pretty drunk right now, or he's slurring his words, or something's not adding up. And you inquire, and there's denial, or you know, some gaslighting, things like that. And you love that person, and you don't want it to be true. Because if it's true, you got to do something about it.
And I wasn't ready to do anything about it because I had no clue what to do about it. So for me, okay, I'll believe you. Let's move on.
Heather Lowe: Self protection for sure. So is that how, knowing what you know now, which of course will continue with your story, but did you feel shame or bad or dumb or for not knowing that?
Or do you see it as like, obviously that's what any human would do. That's a form of self protection. Or did you have to work through that yourself?
Jessie Repeta: I had to work through it. So I lied to myself. Saying I was totally blindsided. I use words like I had the rug pulled out from underneath me and I had this amazing therapist.
He's now retired, but I had this amazing therapist when my husband first went to treatment. And I was telling my story to him. And I was using that verbiage of, I had no clue. I had the rug pulled out from underneath me. And he said, Well, it sounds like you kind of had some ideas based on the story that you're telling me and he totally called me out and it was like everything I needed to hear.
I was like, you're right. You're right. I was just in denial. I didn't want it to be true because this is the person that I love and I didn't know what that meant for us. And so those were my red flags, right? Is that I'm ignoring my gut instincts and that I'm not actually acting on all of these things that seemingly are going wrong because that means that I need to do something about it.
And boy, is that scary.
Heather Lowe: Yeah, for sure. I can see that self protection. Do you have compassion for yourself now for like saying I was completely blindsided because of course that's what you would have to say in that moment.
Jessie Repeta: That was the hardest piece for me.
And I'd be lying if I told you there still weren't times, but trying to figure out with moments now and being triggered by certain things, um, having my ears perk up like, well, this isn't really adding up or something going on here.
Um, it was really hard for me to work through. Are you, are you just in a trauma response? Or is this actually something going on, right? And at the end of the day, it didn't really matter because it's not my responsibility to sniff those things out. Um, but yes, forgiving myself for that. Um, especially because we, we now have two beautiful children.
Um, but at the time we had, my son was, I think like seven, eight months old when my husband went to treatment. Um, so having a son and knowing that he was potentially in harm's way at times because my husband was using and I didn't get him the, you know, resources needed and I didn't face my own challenges with that.
Um, and stepping up to the plate in my own mind and protecting my son, I felt a lot of. Guilt about that. Absolutely. Yeah,
Heather Lowe: Hadn't considered it like that. Wow. But you can trust yourself now. Like you will not, when you say things happen for a reason or a lesson learned, you will trust yourself now moving forward.
Like, is it trauma? Is it not either way? You're having a feeling and you can trust your feeling, right?
Jessie Repeta: It's exactly it.
And You know, I, I talked about earlier how my husband and I worked together as a team. Uh, that's how our marriage is. We are a really, really good team. And the thing that I can say with 100 percent certainty, is two things can absolutely be true at the same time.
I could be feeling triggered because let's use a silly example, but a real one. Why is my husband brushing his teeth at two o'clock in the middle of the day? Why is that seems like something you'd do if you were hiding your drinking, brushing your teeth at two o'clock. And he's like, no, I just had a beef sandwich from Portillo's for lunch.
And, you know, I wanted to brush my teeth and it can be so true that that could maybe freak me out or get in my mind. And it's also true that it could be annoying to him that that triggers me. And both of those things can be totally true. And we acknowledge it. And we work together to have a very calm and rational conversation so that we can move through it.
Heather Lowe: Yeah, that's perfect. I love that you started as teammates first. And that's exactly how my marriage is. I always say some marriages are fate staring at each other. But I have a thing in our bedroom, like a quote, where we're standing together looking out in the same direction. Right. So like, yeah, instead of like, looking like being overly in, we're just always the team moving in the same direction.
So I love that rehab though. Tell me, I mean, did things crash down? When did this come to your attention? Did he go willingly? Like the whole thing?
Jessie Repeta: Yes. So, , I should probably put a caveat on this saying like, If only I knew what I know now, right? Which so many of us feel that way on so many aspects of life.
Um, so as I tell this story, it's not necessarily the path that I would suggest for people, um, but at the time it is what I, I knew, um, So one night, I heard a can opening in the garage as I was cooking dinner. And I thought, that's kind of weird. Let me just poke my head out there and see, you know, what's going on.
And I found my husband drinking in old style, which is
Heather Lowe: obviously something's wrong. Who does that
Jessie Repeta: As a Chicago girl, you totally get it. Midwesterners sound the alarm. Yeah. . I go an old style. You know, we, we drink blue moons or we that we need a, we need a a bud light.
Like, but we don't, we have orange Tarnish John , but we're not old style people. That's right. So I go out there and I see that he's drinking an old style and I just come into the house because at this point, I'm like,
Heather Lowe: did you have old style in your garage fridge or, so this is just like brand new,
Jessie Repeta: where is this old style coming from?
Heather Lowe: Okay.
Jessie Repeta: Yes. This is not like a beer that we have on hand. This is, that's why I was like, this isn't, something's not good here.
Heather Lowe: You got your own stash somewhere.
Jessie Repeta: It's exactly. I go into the house and he follows me in. And I said, let me know when you want to talk about this. And he kind of starts to stumble through his canned excuses, right?
I'm like, Oh no, I got it from the neighbors. When we were at the party, they said they wanted to get rid of it. And, you know, kind of all of the excuses you already heard. And I can see in his face, he's getting emotional. I can see the tears start to well, and I said, John, I love you. What's going on? And he just starts to hysterically cry and can't form words.
And so I'm, I love my mom. My mom is the world's greatest person. Um, if anyone ever gets the opportunity to meet her, I mean, she's just, we'll add her on in. Um, she's the greatest. We live relatively close. I'm probably 15 minutes. So I called my mom and I said, Hey, I need you to come over. No questions asked.
She's there. She had no clue what she was walking into, but I said, I need you to be here right now. She sat down with me and my husband and it probably took three hours where my husband is just uncontrollably sobbing. And finally my mom says, would you like to write it down? Would that help? And my husband wrote out, I have been lying to you about drinking and hiding my drinking for two years.
Or something along those lines. I don't believe I still have that note, and I'm kind of okay with not having that little relic, but, um, he writes that out, and the only thing that I knew in that moment was that I didn't need to react the way I probably wanted to react. I didn't need to be angry and scream and shame and yell.
I just needed to say, okay, didn't need to say thank you for telling me it. Didn't need to coddle at all, but just say, okay. And we sent my husband to bed. And I looked at my mom and I said, what do I do? And she said, I have no clue. And I think that that's where so many people who are in my position, who loves somebody who struggle with substance use disorder, alcohol use disorder, they've reached a point where they think something might be up, something doesn't feel right, or something's off, or maybe they know it, right?
This isn't, this isn't a good situation. What do I do? And unfortunately, all of our knowledge is from pop culture and, you know, movies. And it's just so wrong, right? What an AA meeting looks like in most TV shows or movies couldn't be further from the truth. Or an Al Anon meeting, or what an intervention looks like.
Um, and now I know that. But at the time, that was all I knew is okay. Well, there's AA, there's rehab, or we can do an intervention where we call everybody and tell them about how terrible of a person they are. So the next day I drove my husband to an AA meeting. And I sat in the car and waited while he went into an AA meeting and he came out and while he was in the AA meeting, I called a treatment center and I said, I'm just trying to get information and they said, well, how often is he drinking and I said, well, I think, you know, he, he, according to him every, every day.
And it's old style. It's getting bad. It's old style. It's not good.
Heather Lowe: And it's probably warm. Do you accept, uh, patients or clients that have had old style?
Jessie Repeta: Oh gosh, it's warm old style. Can you help him? Is there a chance that he'll make it through this? And they said if he's drinking every day, he might need to withdraw.
So he needs to go to treatment, inpatient treatment. And I was the first rehab that I called. I did not call around and do research and ask them about what their program was like and anything at all. Um, I said, you got a bed open. You accept my insurance. We'll be there. So he got back in the car after the AA meeting and I said, how did it go?
And he said, man, some of these people really have problems. I'm not as bad as them. Exactly what we were talking about earlier, Heather. And I said, okay, well, listen, I just talked to a treatment facility and they have a bed open and I'd like for you to go. And he said, well, how long is it? I said, about 30 days.
He was so upset at the idea of being away from me and my son for 30 days. And I said to him, John, I totally get that. I'd be upset too. I can't imagine being away from my son for 30 days. Especially a treatment not on a tropical vacation or something that I could maybe wrap my arms around, but I don't think I own that like Malibu.
That's exactly right. I said, I totally get it. Um, but if you don't fix this. you're going to lose a lot more time with your son. And he agreed to go to treatment, and we packed up his little baggie, and we dropped him off that afternoon. And he willingly accepted it. and he worked the treatment program that was provided to him.
He got out of treatment, and he did, 90 for 90, 90 meetings and 90 days with AA. and Went to therapy every single week and, you know, really worked on trying to learn better methods to cope.
Heather Lowe: And what did you do during that time?
That 30 days?
Jessie Repeta: Panicked. Panicked. Great question, Heather. I panicked. I felt such relief that he agreed to go to a program and go to treatment.
And I sat there saying, am I staying? Am I going?
Every example I had up into that point of somebody who was an alcoholic, hadn't gotten sober, getting sober doesn't happen. At least in the world that I had created based on what the media tells me and what movies say. What's recovery? Never heard of it. And so I was terrified.
Heather Lowe: You didn't see a future of him. Stopping really.
Jessie Repeta: It's exactly it. And I remember my, my dad, who's so, so amazing and they only know what they know about, you know, this disease as well. My dad said, well, you know, I've known a few people who struggle with this and they have to hit rock bottom. And I'm like, okay, well, this didn't feel like rock bottom.
It definitely feels like it could get worse. So you're hearing all of these phrases and these things, and you're like, it's only going to get worse from here. This is not going to be good. Um, And so I'm going to therapy and I'm working with a therapist, but I've got no clue what to do. So naturally I do what I do best, which is try to control everything, which is part number two that I don't recommend for everyone.
Um, I reorganized my garage because that's where most of the hiding and drinking happened. I got all these very expensive clear containers from the container store. Not sponsored, but if you want to hook up my girl, Heather, um, the container store containers so that I could see in case there was anything inside of the containers.
Heather Lowe: You got home edited your life. Yes. Oh, my husband went to rehab. It's time to reorganize.
Jessie Repeta: That's literally like
Let me go up into the attic in case there's anything in there. Let me reorganize the garage. I've got to clean out the basement. There was Um, a few projects around the house we wanted to get done.
I hired people to do all of those projects because that's a stressor. When my husband comes home, it's that there's projects. So I wanted to remove any idea of stress from my husband's life. That's what I tried to do.
Heather Lowe: Okay. Yeah, of course. I understand when my daughter had. a surgery, I came home and cleaned the refrigerator till it shined.
Yeah, right. That's obviously that is what you do. Um, you haven't said the word yet and like the words, the buzzwords yet. And I'm curious about this. Like when you see the movies or what you hear about AA or this or that, isn't it a family disease? And aren't you an enabler? And isn't codependency, did you read codependence?
No more. Is that the first thing your therapist recommended? Like, isn't that your role? Isn't that what we're told about the spouse or the partner?
Jessie Repeta: I mean, you would think that you would learn all of those things, right? You would think that you would understand that what codependency is and what enabling is.
Um, When my husband was in treatment, I wasn't able to visit him, which, another little call out to everyone, now, the treatment center my husband went to is a totally fine treatment center. Family is a huge piece to a person's recovery. Maybe even the biggest piece they think,
Heather Lowe: how is he going to get well if I'm not telling him what to do?
If I'm not there to support him,
Jessie Repeta: if I'm not there to support him and letting him know I loved him and that we're by his side and checking in on how he's doing and, um, Yeah, there was no component at all for me to visit my husband. Um, we were able to talk on the phone a few times and I talked once with my husband, his counselor, and myself on a call for a game plan to come home.
One time, about two days before my husband came home.
Heather Lowe: So he's, you, you hope he's doing the work, whatever that means, right? You hope he's going to get his thing and he's going to come home and be fixed. And you, he's growing and changing and learning and healing in all these ways that you have no idea about.
But you are bubble wrapping your house so there's no chance that this is going to happen again.
Jessie Repeta: That was, I'm zombie apocalypsing everything. And I will say the one resource that was consistently shared with me was Alana. Al Anon is a beautiful resource, and I certainly don't want to make it sound like I think anything negative of it.
Because community, especially for the loved ones of someone who, um, has substance use disorder, alcohol use disorders, in recovery, Community is everything. It's so important to have support. for me, support was great. I needed tactical things that I could do and learn to help. I was told that there's nothing you can do.
It is entirely on your husband. And You can't, you can enable him, but you can't do anything to help him. It was a very weird, confusing. Confusing? Lock the door. Don't let him in. It's exactly it. Detach with love. I'm like, for me, the thing I kept coming back to was this person's my husband and But almost more importantly at that time, this person is my son's father.
So whether or not I decided to stay with him and stay in the marriage, what's best for my son is for this man to find recovery. And that was what was most important to me. So the idea of detaching with love, setting up, you know, these boundaries, enabling, don't do this, do this, do the hokey pokey was so confusing.
And no one was actually really talking with me about any of those things. They were just spewing these kind of buzzwords at me, right? These therapy terms. and I was going to Al Anon and just talking. And I would love a cross talk, for me personally. Give me your thoughts. Give me your two cents. What am I doing wrong?
What can I be doing better? Give me the feedback. I'm open to it. And that's just not what the program was really meant for, and for good reason for the people who attend those meetings. And like I said, there's a beautiful space for that. Um, but it's not what I needed in order to help support my loved one.
In order to grow as the person I needed to be to love my husband.
Heather Lowe: So where did this idea of recovery come from? Like, what did you know of it before this time? And then like when your dad says, I don't think a lot of people really pull through, you know, um, what is recovery? What does that mean? And is it possible?
And where do you learn about it?
Jessie Repeta: Great question. There is this sometimes evil little app that most of us have on our phone and it is called Instagram. I know you are on it. I am on it. Um, I stumbled across this thing called sober Instagram and sober Instagram, once again, certainly has pros and cons, but what it allowed for me to see Is my husband's story was not so unique in the best possible way.
There were thousands, thousands and thousands of people on Instagram, on sober Instagram, living the most beautiful life and sharing and helping others. And that was the first real taste I got of, okay, recovery is possible. And by recovery, recovery. To me, you know, there's sobriety and then there's recovery, right?
Um, and sobriety for me is when you're not actively using and recovery is really when you're, you're, you're getting into the, the weeds and the mud and doing the work, right? And you're working on yourself and you're trying to learn those triggers and how you can work through them and getting to the root of maybe some of the trauma that you have.
Um, and I've seen these. Beautiful, beautiful humans who are so raw and so real share their lives and sure that there is so much fun in sobriety and there is such a beautiful life on the other side of this really tough bear of a disease. Um, so that was where I got my first glimpse. The second part of that and the second thing that really, changed me was.
My husband went to one AA meeting that I dropped him off at before he went into treatment. And I had to check that you can't bring phones into rehab. So he had his phone plugged in at home and I had to check his phone for like his family member's phone number or something to give them an update. There was a reason I was going through his phone.
It wasn't snooping, I swear. Um, and I had turned on his phone and he had no less than 30 text messages from men that he had met one time at one meeting saying, Hey, we missed you meeting today. Do you think you're going to come back? How are you doing? It was so nice to meet you. All kinds of different messages.
And it made me think about how my husband, you know, his initial thought was, man, these people, they, they really did some things. It was intense. This was not a PG meeting. This was, I've heard some things now. And these mostly men, um, in, in his case scenario took time out of their day. To reach out to a stranger at this point to extend their hand and to try to help was such a beautiful thing.
And I know that if they had been through some terrible stuff and they could be on the other side and are now in a place to help others. That's what life is all about. Life is all about is getting to the other side of the hard stuff and then reaching back over and helping other people. And so that was probably the second really eye opening thing that happened where I said, you know, we've got a shot.
Heather Lowe: Wow. I love that. So you started doing some research yourself about like, okay, what is this recovery? Is there hope? Who are these people that Go to rehab and come out. What, what is the future for them? Right. And you're starting to see hope. And then you're seeing actual messages from, from people who had hard times and are now trying to help others.
So your husband comes home. What was your, what was that discharge meeting? You're a one and only like threesome meeting of how we're going to do this now.
Jessie Repeta: It was,
uh,
It was coming up with a contract, which I did find to be something valuable. It was basically a mediator being there to help us through our boundaries, , and help us discuss things that were going to help and things that were maybe going to be triggers for either one of us.
Now, when you're in treatment, You don't really know, or at least my experience was, you don't really know what your trigger is going to be. You're kind of living in this white padded box where everything is sunshine and rainbows.
Heather Lowe: Which is also what you tried to recreate in your garage.
Jessie Repeta: Exactly right.
Heather Lowe: It's not going to be like a treatment center.
It's going to have like spa music.
Jessie Repeta: Exactly.
Yeah. So, um, it's not like when you go to the grocery store and you're doing self checkout and there's many bottles everywhere by you. Um, that's not like treatment allows you to really see is what life is going to be like on the other side of this. , so we're coming up with things, but we have no clue what our things are going to be.
Um, but we did discuss a few things. So for me, finance. is an important thing for me. Um, it's something that my parents instilled in me from a young age is that I always just want to make sure that I am in a place financially where if I need to be out of this situation, I can do so. so one of the conversations and one of the things my husband and I discussed was listen, Worst case scenario is something crazy happens.
You go on a bender, you pick up another addiction, which was one of my fears, right? As you pick up gambling and all of a sudden there's no money left in our shared bank accounts because we're married. How can we make it so that, you know, I feel safe and you still have, you know, some autonomy. And so we talked through financial goals and things that we were going to do there.
So one of the things we did is I set up a separate savings account that if for whatever reason we separated, he would still have rights too, um, but I would be the only one who could make withdrawals from that account. And we squirreled some money away in there just to be safe. Um, so that was a big one for us.
Another one, and this is a very hot take, and this is a, I know that people feel very strongly about this, is the breathalyzer. My husband really wanted to implement a breathalyzer, and I know that everyone listening is like, he didn't want to do it, he definitely didn't want to do it, he just felt like he needed to.
I promise you it was his idea. His biggest fear was, coming home and having every little move that he made or thing that he did be overanalyzed, right? The, let me give you a kiss, but really like smelling his breath or, well, where did you go? And he didn't want to live life that way. And he didn't want me to live my life that way.
So one of the things that he wanted to do was Was he bought it breathalyzer off Amazon and he would blow into it if he felt as though there was reason that he wanted to show that he was sober. So, for example, driving my son, if he was going to take my son in the car. He would breathalyze and show me that he had not been drinking that way.
I'm not sitting there the entire time. Like, Oh my gosh, I hope he didn't drink. My son's in the car and I'm not spiraling and panicking on my end. And that was something he wanted to do that would make him feel secure. Um, in his sobriety and be able to help us rebuild trust. So that was a big one that we implemented as well,
Heather Lowe: not controversial to me,
Jessie Repeta: and I, and I think that it's so controversial because of those buzzwords of things like control and codependency and, and I could see how.
You know, me sticking a breathalyzer in his face when I think he's been drinking and then, you know, him being combative about it could totally blow up and go a different direction. That's not our dynamic, and that wasn't the goal and the purpose behind the breathalyzer. And we really laid rules out ahead of time.
so that was a big 1 for us. What were other things I'm trying to think? Those were those were the two big ones. Um, another very big one is I talked about two things being true at the same time. And this was a tricky thing for us to figure out. my husband needed to be honest with me. There had been a lot of lies over a lot of years, and we wanted to rebuild trust.
And with those lies, , I needed to give my husband a space where he didn't feel like he needed to lie, where he could be open and honest without judgment and share. And some of the things he was open and honest about were scary as all get out to me. They were beyond scary. You know, when somebody says, Oh, I don't know if I want to go to the barbecue.
I'm really itching to drink. \ and I'm like, once again, like secure everything bubble wrap us again, keep us in here and safe and sound and cocooned. We're never going back out in public again, but that doesn't help my husband want to be open. That doesn't help them want to share. That makes him feel like he can't be honest because He doesn't want to hurt me.
Heather Lowe: Now you're going to panic.
Jessie Repeta: Exactly So giving him space to be honest, and then giving myself separate space where I could honestly respond and tell him how I feel about it, where they weren't conflicting with each other was unique thing to try to figure out. Because in most situations, right, somebody's talking, you're responding.
And we really just had to become really good listeners.
Heather Lowe: now my turn,
Jessie Repeta: exactly,
exactly, and not even necessarily in the same breath, right? My husband could share with me that he's afraid and hear all of his concerns or hear his triggers or what he's going through. And I can say, I totally hear you.
That makes sense. How can I help you? And then I could come back a day later and be like, Hey, when you share this, this is really how it made me feel. And I appreciate you being open and honest, but here are some of my concerns or here are some of the things I have challenges with and giving that, you know, each time to breathe
Heather Lowe: for sure.
A couple of things about you.
Jessie Repeta: Yes. ,
Heather Lowe: did it feel like personal betrayal from your, I mean, I know you had to build trust, but are you like, okay, I understand that was substances or alcohol, or are you like. You're lying to me. You know, I mean, did you take that personally?
A
Jessie Repeta: hundred percent. A hundred percent.
Heather Lowe: And were you mad at him?
Jessie Repeta: I went through all of the stages. I went through the mourning of what my relationship was. I went through the anger. I went through the sadness. I went through the, all of them, all of the feelings I felt. what you said before was really hard, which is. When your loved one struggles with this terrible, terrible disease, you can't help but feel like, well, choose me.
Don't you love me? If you loved me, you'd just stop drinking. Who cares about the taste of, you know, what that tastes like? Who cares about what it does for your brain? You love me. That's the most important thing in the whole entire world. It just doesn't work that way. It just, it's, and it's a hard pill to swallow, especially when you love someone so much, you'd do anything for them, right?
The truth is, is that they'd do anything for you too. My husband loves me and my son and my now daughter more than anything in the entire world. He is an unbelievable father. And he had an addiction.
He suffered from substance use disorder and he loves his son so much. But love has nothing to do with that. And that was tough for me to understand.
Heather Lowe: Yeah. You educated yourself that this is a brain disease and this isn't It's not that he doesn't love me.
Jessie Repeta: It's exactly it. And it's hard to not feel that way, right?
Um, but like I said, surrounding myself with sober people on Instagram, you, you just, you learn, right? And you don't necessarily agree with everything everyone says, or every single point doesn't apply to you, but you surround yourself with enough people that you see little bits of yourself in everybody's story.
And we're a lot more similar than we are different.
Heather Lowe: what about, did you grieve your good time parties were over or you would never look at alcohol the same or you had this whole me cute traveling around the world drinking for free on this expense account. Now you go to a baseball game and what, have lemonade and sit in your seat, golf clap or what?
Jessie Repeta: I absolutely had to mourn the loss of the person my partner was. I had to mourn the loss of this idea that I had, this romanticized idea of drinking. For me, the big one was always, well, I never went to Italy. We wanted to go to Italy for our honeymoon, but we got married during COVID and then we had a kid, so that was always on our list.
I'm never going wine tasting in Italy. And the great news is for everybody who's listening, it doesn't matter. Life is so much more beautiful and life is so much more fruitful when you are living present in every single situation with your partner and it's okay to mourn the loss. We do this thing where we make up these ideas in our head of what we expect our future to be like.
That's not actually what I want for my future. That's not what's important to me about my future. What's important to me about my future is that my kids grow up healthy and feeling loved and confident. And that someday I am hopefully 80, 90 years old, holding my husband's hand, bickering about which reality TV show we want to watch or him watching it without me.
And him wanting to watch, you know, football while I don't want to, and that's what life is about for me. It's not about a trip to Italy.
Heather Lowe: There is so much to see in Italy that has nothing to do with alcohol, by the way. So much. And you're not going to watch any of it if you are clear and present and awake and alive and enthusiastic.
I can, I just got back from Paris. That was always my thing. Um, was like, how would I not drink wine in Paris? Well, everyone that's been to Paris and drink wine is like, I didn't see Paris. I just saw the inside of that one cafe that I over drink at every single day. And I missed everything. And I'm like, I didn't miss a thing.
\ we will do
Jessie Repeta: it. We will. And I,
I should share with my story, um, I am sober as well now.
Heather Lowe: Can I ask you about that? So, so tell us, like, wait, you decided that, what, what happened? Like, he's in rehab, are you pouring a glass of wine after you put the babes down? No?
Jessie Repeta: So, that's exactly what happened. So, I had one person, my very best friend from childhood, um, who I personally knew who was affected by alcohol use disorder.
Her dad, um, suffered from it and he ended up actually passing away, um, because of the disease. And she was the only person that I knew who really knew anyone who was affected by this. Turns out I knew a lot of people. I just didn't know I knew a lot of people. Um, so I went over to her house, she came up from the city and I went over to her house and her mom and I, and my friend, we sat there and we drank red wine and we cried and we laughed and we talked about the situation and they gave me some advice and I drank a little bit more than I probably should have.
And I got in my car and I drove home and I never drank and drove. And I got home and that was what it was. And the next day. Um, my son was teething really bad and he was going through that stage where like, I know that you have kids as well, Heather, where you're changing their diaper and they're like trying to run away from you as you're changing their diaper.
And so I'm like, hand on him, putting on the diaper, teething. So there's snot and like, just drool everywhere. I finally get my son in his crib and I say out loud to him. Definitely earned a glass of wine after this one. I said that to my eight month old son, whose father was in rehab from alcohol use disorder, whose father suffered from alcohol use disorder, whose father suffered from alcohol use disorder.
I said that out loud to my son and it hit me like a ton of bricks. , what am I celebrating? I just took care of my son. How lucky am I to have such a beautiful, healthy son right now? How lucky am I that my husband agreed to get treatment? How lucky am I to be in this house with the roof over my head?
What am I doing? Not even necessarily for me. But this boy, statistically speaking, is probably going to run into these challenges if I don't change my life, if his dad doesn't change his life. And that became the most important thing, and that was the last time that I ever drank.
Heather Lowe: Oh my gosh. I'm so happy for you.
Jessie Repeta: Thank you.
Heather Lowe: I'm on the edge of tears. This whole podcast. It's so powerful. Your love for your son, your love for your husband and your husband's love for you. And also your mom that, you know, your husband didn't know what it would be like to have a mom. And then for your mom to admit, she didn't know the answers for you guys.
It's all really beautiful. And I can just tell you, nobody's missing out on a thing without alcohol. It's so crazy. Like you said, like, well, Italy, but Italy isn't wine. Italy is the Colosseum, and it's Venice, and it's the flea market, and Florence, and You know, it's the history and the streets and the connection and the love and not blacking out and not being hung over the next day and not, you know, there's so much more to experience when you're alcohol free and how beautiful for your children to change the trajectory of those generations.
It's the most powerful thing you can do.
Jessie Repeta: It absolutely is. It absolutely is. And it's what fuels everything I do. Um, I do a lot of things for myself and to make sure I'm taking care of myself and taking care of my mental health and trying to move my body. But I'd be lying to you if. I said anything other than I just want to be the best version of myself because that's what my kids deserve.
They deserve the best, most present mom who, listen, at some point, my kids are probably going to want to try to drink if society stays the way that society stays, but they will go into it knowing full stop the challenges. The genetically they are predisposed to have to drinking the challenges that their father has had with drinking and that his father has had with drinking and they're going to know that they've experienced an entire life where their mom and hopefully dad didn't need to do that to have a beautiful, rich, fun, exciting, crazy, awesome life.
And I think that it's just such a big piece of it.
Heather Lowe: Yeah, it's everything. I love it. And life is totally full without alcohol. So that's so beautiful. So, your husband and you, um, you'll talk about it with the kids? And how do you, like, for you, like, you're, , what do you say, you're sober, not in recovery, or like, you just don't drink, or it's a family thing, like, how would you explain this when you go to the barbecue now, of what is going on with you guys?
Jessie Repeta: Great question. So, the thing that I'll tell everybody, and this is the same with, like, the sex talk, it's the same with anything where you're like, ooh, don't know exactly how I want to address this one. Practice ahead of time. Like no shame and like role playing with me and my husband being like, okay, how exactly do we want it?
What verbiage do we want to use? What do we want to say? What do we maybe want to hold back and make sure that we're being age appropriate with? How do we want this to play out? Um, my son is 2 and a half, almost 3. Um, so we haven't really had to go into those conversations at this point. He is aware that we don't drink.
And he is aware what an alcoholic beverage is. The he at three years old almost is smart enough to say that's wine. That's not. So they're very well aware of what we are doing, the decisions we are making. Uh, I say practice ahead of time. And my big thing is there's nothing to be ashamed of. And there's nothing to be uncomfortable about when it comes to talking about alcohol use disorder, recovery, sobriety, any of those things.
I know that the terminology is It's sticky, um, and constantly evolving and changing and that people have what they prefer their words to be. My husband likes to refer to himself as an addict. Um, I think he just thinks it's short and sweet and to the point and doesn't, he says everything is.
Heather Lowe: It's got an edge to it.
Jessie Repeta: Exactly right. It's got that, uh, that old style edge.
Heather Lowe: Well, I've noticed how. Um, appropriate, you were using language during this podcast and it helps to, um, smash stigma to use appropriate language. And you were very careful about that this whole podcast, I was going to commend you for that.
And I mean, he wants to be an addict, rock on, you know, I'm all for that for him.
Jessie Repeta: I think that at one point, and my husband is a character, I believe at one point he said. In SUD, that sounds like STD. Like I don't need people to think I have an STD. So I try to be aware that everyone has their preferences. I really try to catch myself on it because we don't use that terminology in our house.
It is something that I have to be very aware of when I'm talking, but it is important. Um, and exactly what you said is exactly how I'll treat my children. There's no stigma on this. There's no shame around having alcohol use disorder. Nothing to, there's nothing to be ashamed of. You had a disease of your brain.
He's worked really, really hard in recovery and worked programs and goes to therapy and busts his butt in therapy, by the way, to be the best version of himself and father and break the cycle so that hopefully you guys don't have to go through it. But if you do know that there's no shame in having to go through it, and know that we do recover.
Heather Lowe: That's so beautiful. That is so beautiful. I love it. The other thing is you shouldn't have to say anything because not drinking is the most natural state of being.
Jessie Repeta: So true.
Heather Lowe: Why are we like when we meet people, we don't say, um, I don't take prescription pills and I don't do cocaine and I also don't do heroin and I haven't done meth and I don't smoke.
Hi, I'm Heather. I don't smoke cigarettes anymore. Like you wouldn't do that. But with alcohol, it feels like you need an explanation for not drinking and I'm thinking for your husband, it's easy. He says, Oh, I'm an addict. I don't do that. For you. You say what? I, well, I don't do that. I support an, I'm married to an addict, ,
Jessie Repeta: Right, right.
You know, it's that explanation that's so funny that people expect Mm-Hmm. . Um, I've been really fortunate that in my experience I was so worried when I. I live in a golf cart community. We live on the river. We boat, there's a lot of drinking in my neighborhood. The ladies do a wine night monthly. And when I went to that first wine night, I was like, Oh no, these people are going to think I'm boring.
They're going to think I'm terrible. They're going to want nothing to do with me. I literally ripped off the bottle labels of my N. A. drink so no one knew I wasn't drinking. Or I, like, would sneak a Coca Cola in my Yeti mug so no one knew I wasn't drinking.
Heather Lowe: A lot of caffeine, huh?
Jessie Repeta: And it's funny, the moment I finally just ripped the Band Aid off and was like, No, I don't drink.
For me, the experience was 90% of people really didn't care. I thought people cared so much about me and what I had going on. They're worried about themselves. They're worried about getting their next glass of wine or their next drink. They don't care what I'm drinking.
Heather Lowe: Yeah. And you held all that like worry and then actually, who cares?
Jessie Repeta: So much worry. I'd say the first year of my husband's sobriety. I don't want to say it was white knuckling it, but there was a lot of trepidation and fear, right, of he didn't try any NA drinks for the first year because he didn't want to be triggered. Um, he didn't go to a lot of things. He didn't tell very many people that he was sober.
And, What we found in that second year is that like, we were able to really let our hair down and have some fun with it and try mocktails and get to know people who were also sober and tell our friends that we were sober and our, our life changed a little bit, all for the better, all for the better.
Heather Lowe: You have sober friends, which is the best.
I'm so grateful. I'm so grateful for new connections. Um, what advice would you give knowing what you know now, if there's somebody listening whose partner is in need of treatment or headed to treatment or coming out of treatment, um, what would you say?
Jessie Repeta: So the first thing that I would say, and you can apply this to, you know, recovery, you can apply this to so many things in life.
No one that I know, and I know quite a few sober people at this point, but nobody that I know personally has ever been shamed into an active long term recovery. So we are taught and we feel like we should meet our partner with This is what you need to do, and here's what's going to happen if you don't do it, or here's how you make me feel, and here's what you're doing, and all of the bad things about who you are, because you're an alcoholic.
Heather Lowe: That's the way to think the intervention, is like, this is everything you've done wrong, and where you've ruined me, and this.
Jessie Repeta: Exactly. We think of this, it's the Johnson model, is technically what it is, of, Intervening where we sit everybody down and we say, we all hate you and here's why right?
Heather Lowe: Everyone take your turn.
Jessie Repeta: Yes, you're the punching bag. We're all going to go around. And I mean, this people do this out of love. No one like no one's doing. It's because that's the way we think we're supposed to do it.
Heather Lowe: So that's not the way we're supposed to do it.
Jessie Repeta: I don't suggest that way. Now, once again, that's what I did. I said, we're going to go to treatment or probably not going to continue together in this life.
Ultimatum. Yes. So I'm not like, listen, I've been there. Cause that's all. The community reinforcement approach. The CRA is what it's you can Google it. There's so much great information on it. Um, it is based in really positive reinforcement for when you're not using. So you're able to ask your partner questions and get to know them, right?
Hey, what was drinking like growing up for you? Was it around all of the time? You know, did your parents drink a lot? What do you think of your drinking? How is it affecting your goals? Why, what, you know, Oh, I drink when I get off work because work is just so stressful. Oh, what's going on at work that's making it stressful?
Really understanding and getting to the root of these things and asking those good questions and then trying to shape or reshape rather your environment. So that they're able to better cope with those situations. Um, and what they've found statistically, and the research is a little shaky on this. I don't want to, you know, preach this like it is gospel.
They definitely need to do more research on this. They found that By doing those positive reinforcements and really being inquisitive and asking the questions, asking what people think, you're going to get a lot more information back, and it's going to lead that person to want to get treatment themselves more, and really leading from themselves as opposed to the ultimatum.
Which is going to be much more successful in long term recovery.
Heather Lowe: Yeah, and teaching them compassion for themselves. That's so interesting to me because a lot of people, me included, I went through phases of not drinking and always went back to drinking because, not because I couldn't stop drinking. I had done that.
I did 100 days and then I did five months and then I do, you know, I kept doing that over and over. If I really quit drinking for good, how were my relationships going to change? What would my friendships look like? What would my husband and I met in a bar? Like, what would that be, you know,
Jessie Repeta: You live in Wisconsin!
Heather Lowe: That was I was gonna say, I think I had booze in my milkshakes by the time I was your son's age, but three years old, right?
I'm shaking a supper club because my uncle owned a supper club. I played bartender. Like, I don't know if all kids do that. But yeah. Yeah. Playing bartender, play bartender was my favorite game.
Jessie Repeta: Oh my gosh. That's so funny. You say that my husband, we just recently saw like on a TV show, someone had a can crusher on their wall.
My husband goes, did you have a can crusher? And I look at him and I go. We grew up very differently. And he goes that maybe that was the first warning.
Heather Lowe: Maybe you don't need to add that to your garage to your garage edit.
Jessie Repeta: That was like for his mom's boyfriends is you get to crush my beer cans. And he's like, yes.
Heather Lowe: Yeah, totally. For sure. For sure. I hear you. So now like I blamed myself for a very long time. Of course, I just whip myself with shame. But It's like, of course, of course I would with the environment I grew up in and the genetics that I had and the childhood, you know, whatever, of course I would, I wouldn't see it any different.
Anyone in my shoes would be, would end up the same, right? So it's just amazing that I just made a change, right? But what had to change was all those things, not just the drinking, you know, it changed relationships and I'm a different person now.
It's beautiful. And I've become somebody new and I love it, but you don't know that in the beginning.
And there are so few at the time for me, luckily there's sober Instagram. So there's a lot more of this now. Um, role models. I didn't know anybody that was sober and happy. I knew people that had to quit drinking that had their hands slapped and had to sit in the corner and couldn't drink. And the people that were stumbling drunk, they were okay.
But the person that's not drinking, that was an alcoholic. Shame on them.
Jessie Repeta: It's exactly it. That's exactly it. My, my husband, the exact same thing. He is the son to not one, but two people who struggle with substance use disorder. He has ADHD, everything lines up. A doctor should have been telling them that from a very young age.
It's like, Hey, alcohol, it's not going to go great. If you decide to mess with that stuff, substances, statistically speaking, you're probably going to have some challenges based on the data that we've seen. And I just don't know that that conversation was ever had. And the shame of it breaks my heart, truly not a better person in this entire world than my husband, , no one is more hardworking than my husband, more intelligent, more kind and compassionate and all of the good things.
He's not super funny. I'll give him that. But other than that,
Heather Lowe: I was going to say no offense to you because I adore you, but all the best people are in recovery.
Jessie Repeta: Exactly right. My husband is the best person in the world. And to think for even a second, he felt less than because of. Something that of course happened.
Heather Lowe: Of course that happened. Yeah, of course it did. And honestly, it was a solution. It was a solution before it was a problem. And it, it, it worked in a lot of ways. Yeah. Just as it, just like you are ignoring it or denying it or not seeing it worked for you for a minute. Right. Like of course that's self protection and that is what it is to be human.
Yep. He is the eldest child in a family that was very dysfunctional and he took on the hero role. That was what he did. And so he, my husband is a very good athlete. , and that was his thing. It was always the accolades about doing great in football or going to state and track, and it was all to distract from what was going on at home.
And we make jokes about it so frequently now in our household with our two and a half year old, we do this thing where when he's upset, we say, Oh, I see you're feeling sad. Is that what you're feeling? And he'll say, yes. And we say, I totally understand you're feeling sad. What do you do when you're feeling sad?
How do you, we validate him and then we give solutions with how to work through it. And my husband always walks away and he goes. I am learning this for the first time myself as well, because he never was validated with any of his feelings. And so he just learned to swallow them down. And then he quite literally was swallowing them down with ...
"Perform!". "Go perform!"
Jessie Repeta: It's exactly right.
Um, the other thing that I'll a little tidbit I'll add in is, um, my husband did traditional therapy for a long time and absolutely loves it. He's worked with a lot of really great therapists. Um, He started doing EMDR, which I am certainly. not an expert and can describe exactly what it is.
Um, but he's able to really work through those inner child challenges and really understand his feelings, validate his feelings, learn how to feel his feelings as silly as that sounds for someone, but feel your feelings. And that has been a game changer for him.
Heather Lowe: Sure. Reprocessing that. And yeah, feeling your feelings. And he's got a safe place to do that now.
Jessie Repeta: That's absolutely right, yeah.
And um, so that, that's my, my big piece of advice. That was a long winded answer, but people need empathy. People need compassion. Most of the time, maybe even all of the time, I don't know somebody who wants to be active in their addiction.
People aren't like, you know, I really love Blacking out and throwing up and, you know, feeling like I'm disappointing people and feeling stressed out and overwhelmed. They're doing it to try to fix something, whether it be a stressor in their life, whether it be something that happened in their childhood, whether it be whatever, whatever it is, it's, it's the solution to that pain that they're feeling.
And so meet them with that compassion, that empathy, try to get to know them better. And when you meet them with that, they're going to be more open to try to solution things with you.
Heather Lowe: That's so awesome. Like being curious instead of defensive, even with exactly it. Thank you, Jessie. Thank you
so much for all your insight, your openness, your wisdom.
Thank you to your husband for letting you share the story here. It's going to help so many people. Um, thank you for having me on the edge of tears. You've like completely moved my life knowing yours and um, I appreciate you so much. Thank you.
Jessie Repeta: No, I appreciate you, Heather. What you do is beautiful. I'm forever a fan.
Thank you for giving me a platform. I, I'll leave everybody with one last note because that's who I, Irish girl from the Midwest. We just always have to keep talking, right? Uh,
Heather Lowe: we're doing the long goodbye now. We're in the driveway.
Jessie Repeta: Exactly. I thought this is the other hug, the last hug, people recover.
And for a long time, I didn't know that. And I didn't understand that. People recover. a lot. And they do so with the help of family and friends and empathy. So don't give up hope. If you're in the thick of it, you're not alone. Lots of people deal with this challenge. Millions and millions of people deal with this challenge.
You are not alone. If you feel like you've screwed up in the past, start over now. And lead with empathy, lead with kindness and people recover every single day.
Heather Lowe: That's totally true. Thank you so much.
Jessie Repeta: Love you, Heather. Thank you.
And that's a wrap for today's episode of the Peripeteia podcast, a talk show for women. Join us in the insider community with a seven day free trial to continue the conversation at ditchthedrink. com. And don't forget to download my free ebook, The 12 Truths to change your life. Do it for the plot. \ , We'll see you in the next episode. Lots of love.