Drug and Alcohol ADDICTION is real for many people and families. In Episode 29 of the Shining Brightly Podcast show, I welcome a 36 YEAR CLEAN and SOBER addict Candace Plattor who shares her impactful story of misdiagnosis of Crohn’s disease that led to addiction, self-discovery, education, discipline and recovery. We discussed her best-selling book “Loving an Addict, Loving Yourself: The top 10 tips for loving someone with addiction”. Listen to these powerful words that families can talk to an addict about – “We love you so much that we will not SUPPORT your addiction”! Please join me and share this powerful episode.

Mentioned Resources

National Drug and Alcohol Treatment Hotline 1-800-662-HELP (4357)

“The National Drug and Alcohol Treatment Hotline provides information on alcohol and drug abuse, local treatment options, support through hotline counselors about to speak with about alcohol, drug or family problems.”

Website: https://lovewithboundaries.com/

Free Gift: https://lovewithboundaries.com/freegift/

Facebook Personal Profile: https://www.facebook.com/candaceplattor/

Facebook Business Profile: https://www.facebook.com/LovingAnAddictLovingYourself/

Linkedin Personal: https://www.linkedin.com/in/candaceplattor/

Linkedin Business Profile: https://www.linkedin.com/company/love-with-boundaries/

Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/lovewithboundaries/

Twitter: http://www.twitter.com/candaceplattor

Youtube: https://www.youtube.com/user/CandacePlattor

About the guest – Candace Plattor, author of Loving an Addict, Loving Yourself: The Top 10 Survival Tips for Loving Someone with an Addiction, knows from personal experience what it means to be an addict. Within a year of being diagnosed with Crohn’s Disease in 1973, she found herself in the throes of prescription drug addiction. Her Crohn’s Disease diagnosis came at a time when the medical community had a very limited understanding of the disease and how to treat it. As a result, the treatment included some very addictive medications such as Valium, Demerol and Codeine, which she took faithfully for a number of years. Additionally, she discovered that marijuana took away a lot of her physical pain and helped her escape from feelings of powerlessness, hopelessness, and isolation. In no time at all, she became a daily pot smoker and had one more addiction to deal with. And when she ran out of pot, she abused alcohol. After more than 14 years of abusing substances, she reached “bottom” in 1987. Thus began her journey of recovery and self-discovery. In Loving an Addict, Loving Yourself: The Top 10 Survival Tips for Loving Someone with an Addiction, Ms. Plattor draws from her experience as an addict, as well as from the stories of those she continues to help in her practice, to uncover the reality of loving someone with an addiction. All too often, people with an addicted loved one in their lives will neglect themselves in an attempt to “help”. But, as Ms. Plattor points out in her book, this is a lose-lose situation that doesn’t help the addict at all. Instead, loved ones must make their own needs a priority and learn to focus on their own self-care. Ms. Plattor graduated from the Adler School of Professional Psychology with a Masters degree (M.A.) in Counselling Psychology, in 2001. For over 20 years in her private practice, she’s been helping clients and their loved ones understand their addictive behaviors and make healthier life choices.

About the Host- Howard Brown is a best-selling author, award-winning international speaker, Silicon Valley entrepreneur, interfaith peacemaker, and a two-time stage IV cancer survivor. He is also a sought-after speaker and consultant for corporate businesses, nonprofits, congregations, and community groups. Howard has co-founded two social networks that were the first to connect religious communities around the world. He is a nationally known patient advocate and “cancer whisperer” to many families. Howard, his wife Lisa, and daughter Emily currently reside in Michigan, and his happy place is on the basketball court.

Website: Http://www.shiningbrightly.com

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LinkedIn - https://wwwlinkedin.com/in/howardsbrown

Instagram - @howard.brown.36

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#addict #addcition #love #care #caregiver #family #treatment #healthcare #opiods #pills #alchohol #drugs #helpline #motivation #education #inspiration #podcast #download #share #shiningbrightly

Hello, welcome to the Shining Brightly show. This

is your host with the most Howard Brown. Oh man, we are

going to shine today. It's amazing. It's sunny. We have

springtime here in Michigan. And we have our lovely guest,

Candice platter. And oh my god wait to hear her story of

overcoming. It's amazing. Candice, welcome from what?

Vancouver? Washington?

Yeah. Vancouver Canada. The most beautiful place

in the world. I think, hello, everyone's,

oh, my goodness. Well, I got introduced to

Candice via Michelle Abraham, who is also in Vancouver,

Canada. And this story, I have to tell you, I watched her

videos and a TEDx talk, which we'll get into. And you are a

thriver survivor, a warrior, a hero, all of that super woman.

I'm just telling you, I I can't I first I don't even know how

you do it. So we got to learn how you did that. So let me

introduce you. And then you're going to fill in some blanks.

All right. Candace Plattor is the author of loving addict

loving yourself. Top 10 survival tips for loving someone with an

addiction. And you know this from personal experience,

because you were diagnosed with Crohn's disease, and they had no

idea how to treat that. So that's a story. So they started

giving you lots of medicines and pills and oxycodone and Demerol

and Valium. All the stuff which you took to you even actually

then took to marijuana and alcohol. So you've lived a

little bit there and and had to survive that. And you also

graduated from the other School of Professional Psychology, you

have a master's degree, you have private practice, and you have

clients. And I just, I mean, I want you to fill in the blank

stare, tell me what I missed, tell people in my audience what

they should know more about you.

Well, I will say that I'm going to be 36

years clean and sober in July, so I'm 35 years clean. And I'm

an addictions therapist now working specifically with

families that are dealing with somebody's addiction that are

grappling with this and don't know what to do. And that's who

I predominantly work with. And I've been doing that for the

last three decades. Now we hear news that there's an opioid,

opioid epidemic in our countries. And I want you to

speak to that in a second. So first of all, I have to take a

quick pause and say, Oh, my God, hell yeah. 36 years clean. Oh,

my God in July. Amen, sister. It's incredible. That is

amazing. I just want to acknowledge that because that is

not a small achievement. That is a lifetime of work. That is a

lifetime of work. Yes.

All right, tell worse and worse every minute.

Absolutely. Tell my audience something we that not everybody

knows about you something different.

I think that there are a few things. But the

one that I will tell you is that I saw the Beatles twice in

person.

That is cool

Yeah, once in 60, 65 or 65. In Atlanta,

Georgia, once the year later in Toronto.

That's awesome. I can't tell you how many times I

saw the Grateful Dead so we won't go there, by the way. And

if you're on the video side of things, you have a beautiful art

piece of a butterfly behind you. It's you can't mistake it. It's

just gorgeous.

maybe we can talk about what the butterfly

means. To me anyway. Yeah,

let's look No, let's start there. What is the

butterfly mean to you?

Oh, well, you know, most, okay, firstly, the

butterfly starts off as a caterpillar. And the caterpillar

gets no respect at all. The caterpillar, you know, goes

along the ground and boys love to squish it and little girls

love to shriek and say .... And, and teachers like to dissect it

and biology class. And this is the life of a caterpillar

through thought a caterpillar has an instinct and the instinct

they know that if they don't change, they're going to die. So

they shimmy up a tree trunk and onto a branch and they hang

upside down and they create the sack of what I like to call bug

juice. And they sit in their own bug juice, which could be kind

of related to addiction recovery where we're sitting in our own

bunk juice, and they sit in their bug juice, And they

basically changed their entire DNA almost completely. The only

thing that's left is this part here. You can see it the middle

part. This is the caterpillar, that's the caterpillar. But it

changes everything else and it grows these amazing wings on it

turns into this beautiful, amazingly fragile, but strong,

vulnerable but amazing creature. And when it's absolutely ready,

out comes the butterfly from the bug juice. And nobody says, ewe,

a butterfly. Everybody says, ah, a butterfly. And the, you know,

the way I relate to it is that I was a caterpillar for a very

long time. And I have now been a caterpillar a butterfly for

quite a long time as well. And it's not negotiable for me, I am

not going back to caterpillar.

I love the way that we started the show. That

transition. Thank you for that. And again, let's all be

butterflies as much as we can and not go back to being Oh,

yes, another pillar. So I love it. So all right, well, we gotta

go back back and talk about this. All right. Did you

yourself know? Oh, you have a butterfly coffee mug? Did you

know you are you did you know you are you are an addict.

I didn't know that I was an addict until about

15 years into an opioid addiction. That was just

devastating. And that was brought on by prescribed

medication for my Crohn's disease. I had no idea was an

addict addiction wasn't on the radar at that time. It really

wasn't nobody was talking about addiction in the mid 70s In the

mid 70s, or 80s. So what happened for me is that I

reached the bottom and they talk about people reaching their

bottom. My bottom was pretty low. I was using all kinds of

substances that were depressants in the human system. And I

became so depressed, not knowing why I mean, I had this really

difficult physical illness that I was dealing with sick so much

of the time. But on top of that, like psychically, I was really

depressed. And I got to a place where I really wasn't sure I

wanted to live anymore. And I remember one night, standing in

my apartment, I had my bottle of pills, because I had so many

pills, I could easily kill myself and I had a plan and I

was going to time it so nobody would find me. And I was

starting to scare myself if you know. So I had this bottle of

pills in one hand, and the phone in the other hand, and I called

the Vancouver crisis centre. And somebody on that, on the other

end of the line, listened to me, respected me and helped me see

that I had a choice about this. I didn't have to continue to use

all these drugs. And it was just amazing. But I I wasn't done

yet. And I signed myself into a psych ward for about a month. So

that because I was afraid if I had my clothes to have my car

keys, I didn't know what I was going to do to myself. And I

needed to be under some supervision and to get some

counselling to get some help. So I did that. And while I was in

there, I heard about Narcotics Anonymous and Alcoholics

Anonymous, I had no idea what those were. I had no idea was an

addict. That was your initial question. No, I didn't know I

was an addict. But I soon found out that I was knowing that for

me was the best thing that I could ever find out because then

I knew what was going on and I knew I could do something about

it. So you know some people don't like it. If you call them

addicts, you're labelling them you're stigmatising them all

that stuff. I don't. I don't buy into that. I think that's just a

way of avoiding self responsibility. For me. I was

really glad to know I was an addict. Because then I could

become an addict in recovery, then I could become not an

addict.

Yeah, I listen. I'm a two time stage four cancer

patient, survivor and advocate. It's who I am. It's part of me.

It's part of my journey. It's the cards I've had to play. So

you know, label or not, I'm a cancer. I'm a cancer patient for

the rest of my life and I have been twice so I you know I

wanted to so you know you so now you bottom you reach bottom, you

talked about that. And then also, you said that you didn't

know you were an addict until you got some supervision and

some some education now, and one of the questions how do you know

someone you love isn't addict for the you know anyone out

there in the Listening world or the watching world out there?

Who How do you know that what is something that they can look

for?

There are many signs, you know, in terms of

people changing their behaviours and doing things differently

that can let you know that somebody's got a drug problem.

Really, what, what the industry says is that the only person

that can really say whether they're an addict is oneself.

And I kind of agree with that. I think that's, that's something

that we all come to in our own time. But if you think that

somebody in your life has a problem with drugs, you're

probably right. And what you're looking for is changes in

behaviour. are they hanging out with different kinds of people?

Are they isolating? are they losing jobs? They can't keep

jobs, depending on how old the person is, you know, if it's a

youth, are they are they changing their friend group,

it's their are their grades going down? Are they not coming

home and curfew? You know, there's a lot of things that you

can be looking for. But mostly, temperament is going to change.

Emotionally, you know, they're going to start being much more

reactive in most cases, or very isolative, and not wanting

anything to do with anyone. So you're looking for the changes

in what's happening. Most people know whether they've got an

addict on their hands. And an addiction isn't just drugs and

alcohol addiction is video games, that they play into the

night and can't go to school or work the next day, gambling,

porn, there's just so many, there are so many things that we

can use as addiction. Really, addiction is a symptom, it's

really only a symptom of what's underneath it, what's causing

it, what's going on for the person, what's really happening

for that person, and a few love and addict then you're kind of

in the same place where you have to look at what you need to do

what you need not to do, and what's going on for you

underneath to so that

Yeah, the family member as as part of your

practice, the family member and the or the caregiver or the

partner, the friend also needs to actually get some, some

coaching some education in order to be able to live and deal with

this. So one of the questions why why do you why do why do

people go down the path of addiction? And then this is the

secondary question, is that? Are you born with it? Or is it it's

something that just life throws at you and you use that as a

survivorship or survival technique?

Yeah, what you're born with it, you know,

the scientists haven't been able to prove that yet. And I've been

waiting for that for for like, three, five years, to see

whether they could come up with that. Because we don't know

whether there's a genetic predisposition. We don't know

that scientifically. But you know, when people grow up in a

home where there's addiction, you learn what you live. And,

and usually children go one of two ways. They either they

either drink their first sip of beer when they're five, and just

keep going, you know, because it was left out at the last party.

Or they never touch this. They never touch it. Because they see

what it's done to their parents or to other people. The reason

that people use addiction is to feel different. Most people use

addiction to feel better. They don't feel good about

themselves. They don't like their lives. They want to escape

from that. They use it to feel better. Some people who don't

believe that they deserve to live any kind of happy life,

even under the influence, use it to feel worse about themselves

and to really build trip themselves and cripple

themselves that way. But really, it's because we don't feel good

about ourselves. We don't feel good about our lives, and we

don't know what else to do about that. And it's the same with

families when families have somebody with addiction. They

don't know what to do about that either. So the family Is have to

learn what to do and what not to do.

Yeah, and they need to learn those or else that

life can be pretty dark. And then bad things can happen,

right? Bad things can happen. And that's where learning to

grab on to a little bit of light to be able to turn it around.

And again, it's not easy, not easy to do to get back up again,

for sure. Now, you also, you state that addiction is really a

choice.

So what would you What do you mean by that?

Well, what I don't mean by that, I'll start.

I'll start there. First, what I don't mean is that people choose

to become addicts. I don't think anybody chooses to become an

addict. I don't think anybody says, Yeah, let's do that.

That'll be fun. You know, nobody says that. I shouldn't say that.

But once we're in active addiction, I can tell you, as an

addict, that we know what we're doing to ourselves. Even if

we're high as a kite, we know what we're doing to ourselves.

And we also know what we're doing to the people who love us

to the people around us. Once we're an active addiction, we

have a choice about whether to stay in addiction, or whether to

come out of addiction and go into some kind of recovery. And

those of us who are in recovery, like myself, every one of us

knows that we are in recovery, because we are making a choice

every day. Sometimes every nanosecond, you know, of the

day, to stay clean and sober, to stay away from whatever the

addiction is, we're making a choice to do that, or we

wouldn't be in recovery. And many people. Well, I don't know

if it's many people, but enough people to mention it, you know,

can have years of sobriety and then relapse, and they make a

choice to go back into addiction. It's, you know,

whether you think about it as a disease, which I don't, because

I have a disease, and I know the difference between addiction and

something like Crohn's or cancer, whether they see it that

way, which is how they see it and 12 Step programmes, or

you're looking at a genetic predisposition, or something

else, underneath all of that. Addiction is a choice, you

either are in addiction, or you choose not to be in addiction.

And it's really that simple. It's not easy. not always an

easy choice to make, but it's a simple choice, you are either in

addiction or in recovery.

in different forms, destructive escapism,

looking to get out of pain is that all of the above

all of the above all the above. And, and,

and a lot of people start their addiction through pain, through

physical pain, and the prescribed medications like I

was, you know, when I was when they started prescribing these

meds to me it was in the early 70s. They didn't know better, I

don't think they did. You know, in the doctor's defence, really,

we weren't talking about addiction. I don't think anybody

thought about it. They just wanted to help this young woman

who was coming into their office and crying all the time. That's

what they wanted to do. So they gave me all this medication over

and over and over and over for years. But the problem is that

they're still doctors are still doing this. And now they know

better. And they're still doing this. So a lot of people, you

know, they've had an accident or something's happened to them.

And they're in a great deal of physical pain, and that's real

for them. And they're prescribed Oxycontin, or something like

that, and they start using it. Wow, did they ever feel better?

Yeah, I keep using it. And there are other ways that people can

deal with pain. I just want to say that because I'm still in

pain. I'm in pain with Crohn's disease. I you know, it's like

your you'll always be a cancer survivor. I will always have

Crohn's it doesn't have it doesn't have a cure, or there's

no known cause there's no known cure. So, you know, you learn

how to deal with it in a different way. And that is

possible.

Yeah, no, I acquired stage three peripheral

neuropathy. I have burning in my fingertips and numbness in my

hands and feet and toes and it's a life it's a lifelong thing and

they you know, what they did? They want to give me Lyrica,

Gabapentin. Oh try acupressure, acupuncture. Nothing is worked,

And I I'm breathing and I'm alive, but it's something that I

am coping with and dealing with and trying to carry forward. And

I fully understand that. I'm really glad that you mentioned

other types besides just drug addiction, gambling, smoking,

drinking, or alcoholism, pornography video, because we're

coming out of we're coming out of the pandemic. And, yeah, I

like to say that it's okay not to be okay. Because everyone's

not okay. Everyone's emotional well being has been jilted.

Because we were restricted, we had to decide whether we're

taking a vaccine or not taking a vaccine. We couldn't go

anywhere. We wanted it all the times. Were now some working

from home, some are working back at the office, some are hybrid.

We've changed and, and also people I will mention this is

that people did not go get their checkups in their screenings.

And me as a as a cancer patient says, Go get your screenings

right now, timeout, go get your mammogram, go get your prostate

check, go get your cardio, go to the dentist, go get your

colonoscopy go get checked. So because a lot of people skip

them, but the big one right now, and I look at it from our

younger, younger people's kids. Boy, they lost a lot. They

didn't go to school, they had to learn on this zoom thing. And

boy, are they setback, but emotional well being I have a 21

year old now. And so I see things through her eyes. And

it's a digital world that they live in. And, boy, emotionally,

everyone's trying to get back on track. More Than Ever After this

after we've all lived through. So

an addiction really, really rose during

during the pandemic. In so many ways. Food is one of the ways

that that addiction, you know, people ate their way through

during the pandemic. None of us knew whether we were going to

survive. Let's keep eating chocolate. What the hell, you

know? So? No,

yeah, let's buy all the toilet paper off the

shelf at the supermarket. So no one else can have them. I'm

joking. I don't want to make light of it. Because this is a

very serious tone. You're right, yeah. 100%. Now, let me let me

tell you able to turn the corner. And now you're, you

know, I'm gonna call you a noted expert here. But you've you have

you wrote a book loving an addict and loving yourself one

of four books. And you have a top. Yeah, show you can show.

Yeah, we're gonna feature that in the show notes and the link

to it, people can go get a copy. And so you have 10 Top survival

tips, could you pick out a couple of the most important

ones and share them?

Yeah. I think I think I have three favourites.

And I'll just one of the first one is that you can't change or

you can't control or fix another person. So stop trying. That's

the first one. And there's a quote for every tip that I have,

from different people. And for this for this tip. It's from

Robert Heinlein. I don't I don't know if everybody knows who he

was. He was a brilliant science fiction writer. He wrote so many

books, but Stranger in a Strange Land was one of his books. And I

always felt like a stranger in a strange land. So I really liked

it. Anyway, he, his quote is never try to teach a pig to

sing. It wastes your time and it annoys the pig.So, you know, we

can't change anybody else what we, if you've got an addict in

your life, you can't make them stop using you can't make them

stop. What you can do is you can make it much more uncomfortable

for them to continue doing it. And this is what I help family

members learn about. So. So the next one is learn the difference

between helping and enabling. So that that tip is probably the

most important one in the book. So enabling, an enabling

behaviour is one that keeps an addict stuck in their addiction.

So it's like giving money to an attic. You know, all mom I need

20 bucks. So mom says okay, well what's 20 bucks, so give them 20

bucks and we know where that money is gonna go it's gonna go

down his throat up his nose and his arm, you know? And, and if

we can, money is not the only way that people enable an

addict. But it's probably the biggest way that they do and and

if you're, if you're letting an addict an act of addiction, live

in your family home and use or drink in your family home and be

obnoxious and punch holes in the walls when he's angry or, you

know, if you're going to continue to let them live there

rent free. That gives them more money for their addiction,

you're maybe doing their laundry, you're buying the

groceries and cooking their meals. Don't do that. Don't do

that. So this book tells you how to stop enabling, because you're

just contributing to keeping the addict stuck. Why should they

change? And enabled addict does not recover? Because really, why

should they, they've got it going on, they got it made,

except for the fact that they hate themselves. So what you

want to do is learn how to actually help, how to set

boundaries, with consequences, that means something to the

addict. And the most important message to give an addict, the

addict that you love, families need to love their addicts, but

they need to be healthy when they do that. The message is, we

love you so much. And because we love you so much, we're not

going to support you in your addiction anymore. We don't want

to see you in addiction. It's a horrible life for you, it tears

us apart, watching you do this to yourself. So we're not going

to support your addiction, when you're ready to be in recovery,

then come to us, let us know that and we'll be there for you.

But if your choice is to continue to use, or drink, or

stay in the basement and watch video games, or or or if that's

your choice, we are not going to support that anymore. And it's

because we love you not because we don't, it's not a punishment,

it's to help you get well. So most of the kinds of helping

behaviours that need to happen, that families need to learn how

to do so that they're addicts make a different choice.

Wow, powerful. Just I'm taking notes. There's,

I mean, I have to tell you, you're helping not only speak to

me and educate my audience, I don't have a lot of experience

in this area. But I do mentor and have coaching clients for

survivorship, a lot of cancer patients, but they're, it's this

is helpful for me because I'm learning and I want to

incorporate some of this into into into how I lead and teach

and live. I out of your book, you actually talk about the

importance of self care for those who are in relationships

with addicts, I'd love you to expand on that. Because I think

it's important we we hear self care bounded about but it means

something. And you're going I want you to tell if

it really does. And it was going to be the third

tip that I was talking about. So I'm glad you brought it up. So

the chapter on self care, it's called know that self care does

not equal selfish. Because a lot of people get that one confused.

If I take care of myself, I'm being selfish. No, you're not.

And you're being healthy, and you're being exactly the way you

need to be, especially if you have an artist in your life. So

I like to talk about the analogy that everybody's heard that, you

know, when you're on the aeroplane, the steward of the

flight attendant comes on the microphone and says, If we hit

that turbulence, you know, the masks gonna drop down. And they

always say, put your own mask on first. Right? Because if you

don't put your own mask on first, you're trying to get the

mask on a baby or somebody who's second invalid, or somebody's

very old or something like that. You're trying to help them

first, you're going to be on the floor of the plane, not able to

breathe, right? So you need to make sure that you're breathing

first, and then you help them. it's really tempting to do it

the other way around. And a lot of people who love addicts are

putting the addicts first there putting the addicts needs first

is the worst thing you can do. You need to be a different kind

of role model. You need to have your own life, go golfing, do

what you love to do, and, and role model that for the addict

to be to have the addict be the centre of your life is not good

for them. It creates an entitlement in them, and it's

not good for you. So self care. You know, when we think about

self care, there's the four pillars of self care. So there's

physical and mental and emotional and spiritual, and

it's really important to know how to take care of yourself in

all of those ways. So in my book, I talk about all of those

ways to do that.

I have to tell you, we're like kindred spirits,

because in my book, I talked about finding your happy place

for self care. Mine happens to be the basketball court, but I

could care less if it's cooking, hiking, jogging, travelling,

music, yoga, it's all good. And then I agree with you, if you

don't lift ourselves up, how can you actually lift up others and

you're constantly lifting up the addict at the expense of your

own needs, and my caregiver wife gave up everything to help take

care of me and my daughter and gave up her needs. So our

caregiving and family members, they pay a price. And I think

that's what you're saying.

But you know, the people who are being

caretaken, also pay a price. Because there's a certain amount

of resilience that we all have. And even people who are sick,

have resiliency and we need, I mean, I've been very sick in my

life. And I, I needed to develop myself and know that there were

things I could do for myself. Maybe I was limited, I was much

more limited than I am today. But I could still do things for

myself. If I had had somebody who always did everything for

me. I don't know if I'd be sitting here with you today.

I hear you and I'm with you. You have to take some

ownership some some own responsibility and

accountability for yourself and make this step forward and

inadequate stay want to choose to stay in that addiction in

that world. And until they make that choice to get help and get

recovery. It's kinda like just knocking your head up against

the wall. You're gonna get a big headache for as the family

member or caregiver. Alright, so I got those feel, but it does

feel really good when you stop. Yeah, against the wall. It does.

It does. Absolutely. Even if you put an ice pack on it to help

you. I got a big this is this is a question that can anyone can

you really ever get over addiction?

Absolutely. I am living proof that you can get

over addiction. All you have to do is make different choices

every day. You have to want it. There's a you know what, there's

a saying in 12 Step programmes, there's so many great sayings.

One of them is you gotta wanna, you got to wanna, you got to

want it. If you want recovery, you can have recovery. If you

don't want recover, you want to stay in addiction. I feel for

you. I've been where you are, I understand. But, you know,

there's not a whole lot I can do for you, except change some of

the things that I'm doing if I'm in relationship with you. It

sounds like you know, you know, I agree with you that and I

asked that question not 100% knowing the answer, but you're

living intentionally meaningfully absolutely

intentional. I love that. Yeah,

that was the word that was the word that came to

me. This, I have to tell you, I'm the student here and this

and this podcast today. With you, Candace, and the service

that you provide are vital. i What was it like giving a TEDx

talk? Was that the coolest? Was that? Just excited?

You know, it was so exciting. I was so

nervous. I've told the story before I was waiting in the

wings to have my name called to go out. if anybody's interested

in doing a TEDx talk, I would look into it and do it. If it's,

I'm planning on that for myself. It's on my list

to do and I'm gonna do it. And it's really, really important. I

if it's a passion for you, if you've got something to say, if

watched your TEDx talk, I'm going to include it in the

shownotes and on when I when we publicise the episode, I think

it's incredible for you that you've done that some major

kudos and accomplishment so I want to applaud you. So we're

all right, we're gonna head down to the shining brightly moment.

you've got a message, to help people think about something in

For those of you on audio I'm putting on my white and gold

glasses that are reflecting beautifully off the butterfly

enough of Candace, you are in the shining, brightly spotlight.

I want people to know how they should best get in touch with

a different way. Go for it.

you, and then give some final comments and we're going to take

the show home.

Okay. So my business is called love with

boundaries, because we need to love and we need to love with

boundaries, otherwise we get stomped on. So

lovewithboundaries.com is the website, please go to the

website. If you go there and you sign up for my newsletter, then

you can get a free report. That's called the seven tips to

outsmarting your addiction. So if you've got an addict in your

life, you can maybe give it to them and have them read it after

you read it. By the way, my book is not for the addict, please

don't find my book thinking we're gonna give it to the

addict. Addicts hate my book. This is for you the loved one,

they get really mad at me because I'm talking about

boundaries. And you know, addicts don't like hearing the

word no. So don't give my book to an addict. So, so loving and

loving an addict Loving Yourself is my book

lovewithboundaries.com is my website, we offer a 30 minute

free, absolutely no strings attached consultation, we

usually do it on Zoom. We're International, we've got clients

from so many different places in the world. And if you are

thinking that you would like to have some help, if you're even

thinking about it, get in touch with us. If you're thinking

about it, it means that you've been through the wringer

already, you don't want to do this anymore, you want to find

out how to make this stop for you, and it can stop, it can

definitely get better. So you can get in touch with us on the

website, there's a link to a questionnaire that you fill out

as soon as we get the question or we'll get in touch with you.

And I think we'll give you I'll give you that for your show

notes as well.

I appreciate that.

So there's no obligation if you want to work

with us you do if you don't want to work with us, you don't.

Those people who are ready and follow the suggestions that we

have. The results are just astounding.

Well, I got to tell you website, you actually

have seven tips, okay, and you can get a free 30 minute

consultation. Whether you're the addict or the family member, I

have to tell you, this is a valuable resource. Kenneth, I

want to thank you. This is not a topic that I am that I'm much

more educated now. And I'm just thrilled because we're going to

help a lot of people together today just by actually speaking

for these 30 minutes. And so yeah, so thank you. And I love

that said the butterfly story that started us well, it will

take us out, we're all going to kind of try to be butterflies as

much as possible. So you can get Howard Brown and

shiningbrightly.com You can find my book, you can book me to

speak on a podcast on a stage or actually even find this podcast.

And if we shine brightly just a little bit each day, we actually

can make the world a better place for ourselves, for others

and for our communities. Thank you. Thank you, Candace, you've

been a beautiful guest and what a great, great show today.

Thank you. Howard, bye everyone.