Quitting Drinking Was Easy. Learning How to Parent Angry Kids Was Not.
One of the things I loved about my conversation with Zach Brittle is how honest he was about what recovery really looks like—especially for parents.
Zach said something that stopped me in my tracks:
“Quitting drinking was the easiest part.”
For him, the real work began when alcohol was gone and anger, resentment, and emotional reactivity were suddenly front and center. And if you’re a parent in recovery, you probably know exactly what he means.
When one person in a family system gets sober, everything shifts. Kids who adapted to chaos don’t always feel safer right away. Sometimes they act out more. Sometimes they get angrier. Sometimes they pull away.
Zach shared how his daughter went through her own painful process after he and his wife got sober—and how his job wasn’t to fix her, control her, or defend himself.
It was to stay regulated.
Instead of escalating, he practiced pausing.
Instead of taking the bait, he learned to sit with discomfort.
Instead of rushing in to fix, he learned to be present.
That didn’t come naturally. He practiced. He rehearsed. He failed and tried again.
And over time, trust began to rebuild—not because he forced it, but because he showed up differently.
Action Steps
If this episode resonated with you, try this:
- Notice your triggers – especially anger. It’s information, not a failure.
- Pause before responding – ask, “What would make this worse?” and don’t do that.
- Practice regulation – not perfection. You get better by showing up.
- Let time do its work – healing can’t be rushed, especially with kids.
- Ask instead of assuming – “Do you want to be helped, heard, or hugged?”
Recovery isn’t just about removing alcohol.
It’s about learning how to be with yourself—and the people you love—when things get hard.
Resources Mentioned
- Marriage Therapy Radio – Podcast by Zach Brittle
- Internal Family Systems (IFS) – Parts-based therapy model
- Alcoholics Anonymous – Step work and resentment inventory
- Therapy & Parenting Support – Individual, couples, and family systems work
Guest Contact Info: https://marriagetherapyradio.com/
👊🏼Need help applying this information to your own life?
Here are 3 ways to get started:
🎁Free Guide: 30 Tips for Your First 30 Days – With a printable PDF checklist
Grab your copy here: https://www.soberlifeschool.com
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https://www.makesobrietystick.com
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Zach
[00:00:00] Zach, thank you so much for joining me today. I’m glad to be here. Thanks for having me. … I thought it would be such an interesting conversation to have with you because you’re in the mental health space. . You got sober and you’ve done a lot of work to heal your relationship with your wife, but also you had a teenage daughter at the time.
Mm-hmm. When he got sober and healing that relationship, I hear from so many people that they get sober and then. They need to contend with their children’s anger. . So I thought it’d be interesting to talk about that, but let’s just start with how we got here. If you could share a little bit about how you grew up, whe when you started drinking, that kind of thing.
Yeah. , I’ve been sorting this out in my head because, I think one thing that’s become apparent to me is I had a problem with alcohol before I ever started drinking, maybe even 10 years before I started drinking. , I, it was always a thing in my house and in my life. And I just [00:01:00] remember like really specific incidences.
, Not strictly around my parents, like over drinking, but just, I, I don’t know, man. I just had this like experience of it being, . Problematic. , I read, I remember, I can remember specific poetry poems that I read in middle school, and I was like, oh, that’s a problematic poem, because there was drinking in it.
And, um, and then, uh, you know, I was a, kind of grew up in the Catholic church and then I kind of met the evangelical strain of being alive and decided, oh, can’t do that, because I, I go to hell if I have a drink before I’m 21 or something. Like, I just kind of put it in the. I don’t do it because it’s a legal sort of category.
So I protected myself in that way. And then, uh, I also had this fear. I had this fear that if I ever drank, I would turn into like Mr. Hyde or something. Like, I almost could imagine those scenes in the movies where like the guy starts turning into a bug and he starts popping and like locking and it comes, it’s like a another creature.
Like I really thought that was gonna happen to me. I don’t know why I thought that. I just did. But the [00:02:00] kicker for me was that my dad, whom I don’t have a really healthy relationship with, he, um. He’s dead now for a long time, but, um, he made me a deal one day, my, I think it was in the ninth grade, I was about to go to high school and he said, I don’t mind if you drink.
If you wanna drink, you can drink, um, uh, as a minor as long as your first drink is with me. That is what he said. And like I said, I didn’t have a really healthy relationship with him. I wasn’t, I didn’t really like him all that much and I was actually pretty sure he was gonna try and get me like super duper drunk.
Like really just make me go like throw up. So I took the deal and I didn’t drink until I was 21. My first drink was on my 21st birthday. Um, so I never. I never drank with him. And I, but I didn’t touch it. I didn’t, you know, and once I had my first drink, I was like, huh, this is not too bad. I didn’t turn into a, a monster.
I didn’t feel like I was gonna go to hell. I had, I actually called my dad the next day and said, Hey, this is what my life was like last night. And he’s like, are you okay? And I said, I’m fine, [00:03:00] you know? Um. And then I just kind of lived my life. I just was a person who was alive. I wouldn’t say I had any real problematic drinking that I was aware of until probably my kids were born and I was 30 at that point.
And then I started to be kind of like, Hmm, maybe this isn’t good. And I, you know, I was, I just didn’t have language around problem drinking. I didn’t, I didn’t even know what it was like. I didn’t, I didn’t. I didn’t have any real, like I knew I wasn’t an alcoholic, whatever that was, uh, because I didn’t, I didn’t turn into Mr.
Hyde and I didn’t have DUIs and I was able to like go to parties and not make an asset myself for the most part, I suppose. But, um, but yeah, then I, then I just kind of, I don’t know, it just kind of got progressively worse. As we know, this disease of alcoholism anyway is a progressive disease and it’s pretty patient, like it’ll wait you out.
Doesn’t really quite. You know, you know, some people have this story that, like, I knew the minute I had my first drink that I was a gunner. I just, for me, it was a [00:04:00] much more progressive experience. And it, and then in COVID, um, after, you know, 10 years of trying to quit drinking and I, you know, I did dry January a bunch of times and I trained for triathlons and I, you know, I went six months at one point and I just, you know, I, I kept convincing myself like, I can stop any time, you know?
But it’s always just worse and worse and worse. And then COVID happened and I, I just fell off the rails. I just kind of. I just, I don’t know, I just lost my mind. Um, what was it about the COVID that took you off the rails? Was it like the isolation and I think so. I think, uh, you know, like I was bored all the time and I was at home all the time and I could drink anytime I wanted to.
I was drinking with clients during the day, like, not with them, but I was on Zoom and I just had like a bourbon and coke while I was at 11 o’clock in the morning. And I, I don’t know. And I, when I say I lost my mind, I literally, like, I lost my mind. I. I, my short term memory started to evaporate and I kind of just, I was angry all the time and I don’t know, it just was terrible.
And then, [00:05:00] uh. By the time the fall rolled around, I knew I had to do something. And so I, I did, I got, I asked this one guy that I knew for help and he tried to talk me out of it like three times. He was like, if you want my help, it’s gonna be hard. And I was like, I want your help. He is like, I don’t know if you do.
And I was like, I do. And he said, it’s gonna, I, I try anything else. And I got, I’ve tried everything. So then he just kind of became my defacto sponsor and I got on the wagon. My last drink was November the 13th of 2020. And. Uh, what I always tell people, and this is why I start with this idea that I had a drinking problem before I ever touched alcohol, is that quitting drinking actually ended up being the easiest part for me.
Like I, by Thanksgiving, I was done. I, I, I had no desire for alcohol. I was, I didn’t have any need to drink. I had enough, uh, like had shaken out the cobwebs, but then. I started to get sober, uh, because my real drug of choice was anger and resentment and [00:06:00] mm-hmm. Um, and it took me a long time to work through that.
So I do have this like story around alcohol and I, I’m curious about it and I learn a lot from it, but my, most of my recovery is from anger and resentment. So that’s, that’s where I spend a lot of my time relationally and where I spend a lot and I don’t, you know. I, maybe I’ll drink again. Like I’m never gonna be that guy who says I’m never gonna drink again.
But I just don’t have any, I just don’t have any interest. You know, every time I even get kind of, kind of close, I’m like, I don’t know. Nah, that seems boring, but man, I have to work all day every day on my anger. It’s, it is a totally different thing in traffic. It’s a good example. Yeah, traffic. That’s a good, coming in this morning, trying not to get furious about all these people who are just doing the same thing as me.
Waking up, trying to go to work, and I’m like, what’s your problem? Why? Why are you making my life so hard? Yeah, traffic is definitely a barometer of my spiritual condition, my spiritual fitness. Yeah. Two questions for you. I’m so curious about what was it [00:07:00] about that man that you asked for help that made it accessible to you?
Was he like not a therapist? Was he already sick? No, he, he’d been in my life for a long time. He and, uh, my wife and I had actually been over to their house a bunch of times to talk about life and parenting and he was older. Uh, maybe a. Maybe 30 years older than me. So he is like, you know, in his seventies, um, it was sober guy, been sober for a real long time and I’d always just kind of like enjoyed meeting with him and talking to him about his experience.
But you know, we would go out to talk and I’d have a beer and he would have a nod of beer and we would talk about, you know, and I was clueless. I mean, even then I was just sort of like, this is weird. But, um, no, he just was a consistent present in my life who was steady and stable and, uh. So, um, you know, one day I just called him up and said, I think I’m in, I think I’m in real trouble this time.
Like, I think I’m in real trouble. And he dropped whatever he was doing and started talking to me. And, uh, and I [00:08:00] met with him and another guy, his like partner in crime, I guess, uh, for like two years. Every week, two years, just, uh, just showing up on Tuesday morning and talking about, read through the big book like you do, and kind of just talked about what was going on and, um.
Yeah, so I, I, I, I kind of did a little bit. I did the AA thing for like two years. Um. I worked the steps, I went to meetings. All my meetings were virtual. Um, ’cause I was, it was during COVID, at least I started in COVID. So yeah, I was, my home group was this group outta South Africa that I went to, uh, pretty consistently.
I’ve only been to three in-person meetings in my entire life. Um, so like, I think there’s, you know, obviously a lot of different kinds of ways that you can do this. But once I finished kind of the step work and finished meeting with them, I, I haven’t stayed active in aa. That’s not been my. It’s not been my space of like support and accountability.
Mm-hmm. Um, and again, I don’t really feel like [00:09:00] right now I need support and accountability around alcohol, but I’m still in therapy with my therapist who I love and she and I are in constant conversation about my recovery. But just, you know, I’m not like. I mean, I don’t know. I have this, I dunno if you have this, but I have this weird, I have this weird, um, confidence that I know when my next drink is gonna be.
Like I know where I’m, I know exactly where I’m gonna be. I know exactly what I’m gonna have. I know exactly what mood I’ll be in. Um, and, uh, for what it’s worth, I’m gonna be alone. I’m gonna be angry. I’ll probably be traveling, um, and I’ll be at a bar by myself. No one will know who I am and I’ll probably, uh, order like.
Shots of whiskey. Like that’s, I think that’s the context in which I’m likely to relapse. But what that means for me is I can go to a wedding, I can go to a barbecue, I can go to my own fridge, I can go to, I can go out to drink with friends. Like somehow I’ve codified that for myself. Like I literally don’t think about it.[00:10:00]
Except sometimes when I’m walking to an airport and I’m like, Hmm, no, not angry enough. You know? Yeah. It’s interesting ’cause in 12 step literature, they do say that resentment is the number one offender of relapse. Sure. Yeah. I, I believe it a hundred percent. What is the nature of your anger and resentment?
Typically, people have common themes, so is it like anger and resentment towards self? Is it unresolved anger and resentment? Like what is the root cause? Have you gotten to that part yet? That’s a really interesting question. Um, I think I, I think I have to take it back probably to my dad. Like I had this fear.
That if I didn’t live within the expectations that he established that I wasn’t gonna be a man or something. Like, that’s, that’s what I um, Hey, Arlena. Hold on one second. My [00:11:00] wife never calls me and she’s calling me. Oh, go ahead. So lemme just see what she’s doing.
Okay. Are we still toge? Are we still there? Yeah. Uh oh. Yeah, we were talking about, uh, the na We’ll just let [00:12:00] me just ask you the question again. Can you still hear me? Uh, hold on. My, um, I need to get my speakers back. Here we go. Okay. Good.
Very good. Yeah. Okay. Okay. Um, sorry. Um, yeah, we were talking about the nature, the core issue. You were talking about your dad. Yeah. Yeah. I think it, I think it probably, the thing about this story is I, I, I, it’s hard for me to, it’s hard for me to wrap my head around it. ’cause I, I, I’ve actually had a lot of healing around my dad.
Like, uh, I, maybe this is the way into this answer. When I was doing the step work, um, I. I thought that you made amends to the people that you like threw up on, or whose car you crashed, or the person who’s like, you know, you embarrassed them or you broke their lamp at a party or something. Like, I, I sort of thought you, you made amends to all the people that you offended and, and at least with Dave, my sponsor.
They, they, Dave and Jim, they made me make this list of all the [00:13:00] people that I had resentment for. Like I just, it was a, like a list from top to bottom of everybody that I was angry with. It’s a pretty long list. And that’s a force step. Yeah. Yeah. Then they had me rank it and I. My dad was at the top and at the bottom was an aluminum Christmas tree stand.
Like it was literally an inanimate object, um, which has made me the angriest I’ve ever been in my whole life. And it was interesting ’cause I started writing a letter to this Christmas tree stand and, um, kind of making amends for beating the shit out of it, which is what I did. I, I mean, I destroyed this thing, um, just because it didn’t do what I wanted it to do.
And, uh, so I wrote a letter to the Christmas tree stand. I wrote a letter to my, my middle school bully. Um, who objectively terrified me for years. And so I’m writing this letter and it’s the best editing I’ve ever had in my life because they were, they ripped, they stripped out anything at all that sounded like displacing responsibility or pushing it away.
Mm. You know, I did this because you pushed me around or I, you know. And by [00:14:00] the time I wrote those two letters, which took me months, um, by the time I was done with those two letters, I was done with my dad. Like, I, I, I no longer was caring because I, because I brought responsibility into myself. I brought, I brought it into like, so the nature of my resentment is somehow believing that the world owes me something, and that when it doesn’t deliver, I have a right to be offended and upset and, you know, um.
With my bully, uh, you know, objectively I was terrified by this guy. I mean, he, he harmed me, and yet I still was able to kind of go, but I never stood up for myself. So I gave you permission to, you know, make me feel small and afraid, and, and I need to take that on to myself and. Having done that, like the process of doing that over and over and over again in the last five years has been the thing that has actually given me the most freedom from resentment.
So I actually look for it when I’m upset with somebody [00:15:00] and I’m like angry and I, and I find myself like, um, being like super pissed off at my wife or my kid or like traffic or whatever. I just start to go. I wonder, I wonder what part of this I’m in charge of. I wonder what part of this I can, you know, take responsibility for and, and then it’s kind of fun.
It’s actually kind of fun because I don’t do it with shame and I don’t do it with like self-deprecation. I just sort of go, yeah, if I had left earlier, I wouldn’t be in this situation. And that’s on me because I just puts around this morning. So, yeah, you know. You know. What role does forgiveness play in this process?
Forgiveness of self for others. My favorite definition of forgiveness is giving up hope for a different past. Yeah. Um, and I think about that a lot because, you know, I get these questions sometimes, like, if you could go back and tell your high school self one thing, what would it be? And then, you know, maybe I start to fantasize about marrying a different person or getting a different job or investing [00:16:00] in Apple or something.
And I, and I just. I find that it’s a really flawed experiment because I, I look at my life right now and I go, no, this is my life. This is my life. And I like my life and there’s things that are challenging by my life, but I, you know, again, I spend time talking to thousands of people and their lives are, I mean, they married a different person and they invested in Apple and they got a different job and they’re still suffering.
So I just sort of. For me, it’s just kind of letting go of this idea that I deserve or could have had something else. And when I do that, I just have a lot more grace for myself and I have a lot more grace for other people. So, yeah. Um, I just sort of go, okay, well, but what do I do with this? You know? Yeah.
Because yeah. Doesn’t do me any good to get upset about it. And, and, and again, what I want to emphasize is like, I, this is fun for me. Like I, I. I play this game of trying to negotiate out of, of anger that I don’t want inside of me. Yeah. [00:17:00] So I spend a lot of time with couples and these, these guys or these women.
But lemme just say, guys, these guys are so upset because their wife doesn’t and their wife doesn’t, and their wife is this and their wife is that. And I’m like, okay. Well, then why don’t you just make it about you? If you make it about you, then you don’t have to worry about her. And you can, you can not be angry and you don’t have to not be angry for her.
You can not be angry for you. And they’re like, well, what about, what? How am I supposed to do that? I go, that’s the fun part. Like literally you could start to be like, what if I wasn’t angry right now? What? What would I do instead? Yeah. I might surprise myself. I might, I might do something interesting or creative or, and I’m like, sure.
That’s kind of fun, you know? Yeah. Um, I’m learning how to dance. I, I’ve, I’ve, I’ve got excited about jigsaw puzzles. I, uh, I’ve read books made of paper, you know, like I, weirdo, I know, like, I’m like, what if I, what if I didn’t sit around all day blaming [00:18:00] the world for my problems? Like, that’d be interesting.
You know? No, what, what I’m really hearing is that you’re changing how you relate to your feelings. Yeah. Yeah, a hundred percent. And, you know, uh, I just, again, I, I sort of, I was talking to a friend the other day and she was telling me about how she treats the part of other people that she doesn’t like. So she’ll meet somebody and she’ll be like, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah.
And then there’s this part that I don’t like and I fucking hate that part, and I just want them to go away and I wish they would do something about it, blah, blah. And she said. That’s actually how I treat the parts of myself that I don’t like, and that kind of blew my mind. I was like, yeah, I guess that makes a lot of sense because the way I treat the parts of myself that I don’t like, and it’s the way I treat the parts of other people that I don’t like now in my new brain, in my new is, I go, huh.
You’re here too. Okay. Well, uh, since you’re here, um, could you pass the potato chips please? You know, like, yeah, totally relate. Yeah. You’re just part of this, you’re just part of the vibe right [00:19:00] now. And so I could either get super pissed and like, try to get you to go away and you can get all my attention, or I could be like, okay.
Um, well, I’m sure you’re, I’m sure you got something to. Offer. So, uh, just hang out over there for a little while until I figure out what that is. Uh, you know, I, I love this discussion of parts because once I, um, discovered internal family systems mm-hmm. They talk about these, we have these parts of ourselves that we often, um, exile, dissociate from, and, um.
You know, having a different perspective of how we relate to them. Meaning they have an intention that’s actually good. They’re trying to protect us in some way. Yeah. Right? Yeah. Usually. And yeah, and having, um, appreciation for these parts often allows them to relax and then we can operate from our higher selves.
And I love this. I, I, I, this, I got this idea from a sponsor. She used to ask me, can you love your unlovable [00:20:00] parts? You know, the parts that I hated about myself, which would typically show up in somebody else, right? People are mirrors, you know, they reflect back to us what we love or hate about ourselves, and.
Can we treat them with the same level of compassion that we would treat ourselves? Once we understand that those parts have a good intention, it was like a total way, different way of relating to my parts. ’cause I typically wanted to avoid or suppress or deny or cut out or get rid of. So it was like mm-hmm.
A total, total paradigm shift for me. Yeah. Yeah. It’s something about learning to love them, which doesn’t mean learning to like. Allow them free reign, you know? Right. It’s like, it’s like, man, okay. You’re, I mean, you, you did something. And in a lot of ways, like for me, in these conversations, a lot of what those parts are doing is they’re protecting you from like my dad, like my resentment, my anger made me relieve [00:21:00] vigilant against this.
You know, narcissistic threat that was in my house. Mm. Um, and so, you know, the part of me that took the deal and didn’t drink till I was 21 was very stubborn. Very angry. Mm-hmm. Very, um, fuck you. I’ll show you who’s the boss, kind of stuff. And it protected me. Um, yeah. ’cause I was a scrawny, little wiry little kid who was afraid all the time.
And so what, what could I control? Yeah. I could control like my. My, my, my, my, the terms of the deal, you know, like yeah. I could at least control that. So yeah. That’s really powerful. Let’s, um, shift gears a little bit. Um, sure. What I hear from a lot of people is, you know, they get sober. And they feel better.
They want to reconnect or deepen relationships with their spouse or their children, but the kids are just not there yet. And mm-hmm. I, um, you know, from [00:22:00] research and the information that was presented to me, um, you have a daughter, uh, can you tell me mm-hmm. The story about your daughter and maybe her reaction after you and your wife got sober?
Yeah, well, I have two. Um, they’re both adults now. They’re 23 and 19. Um, so you know, the younger one on my sobriety date, I guess she was, you know, 14. Um, the other one was 2020 at that point, maybe. I don’t quite remember. It’s a, I mean, it is kind of, it’s literally a blur, a little bit of that stuff. Um, what I found, um, is Dave, my sponsor, made it.
Made it kind of clear to me. He said, you know, a system, a family system is like a mobile that’s moving over top of a crib. And when you take, and it’s, and all the parts are moving in ways that like make sense, like they’re just, they’ve, they’ve fallen into their predictable rhythm because the, the mobile is.
You know, inertia has created its movement. Then you grab a piece me [00:23:00] and you stop it, and you stop this one piece of the mobile from moving. And then the other piece is kind of freak out. They don’t quite know what to do. They’re used to the other piece moving, so they go, uh, haywire. Um, I would say that definitely happened for my wife who had been a rock for the longest time we were drinking buddies and I wouldn’t have ever said that she had problematic drinking.
Um, well that’s not entirely true, but like once I kind of got. Sober. She sort of spun out. She just kind of got worse. I mean, she, she was like, took her turn basically. Mm. And then, and then she got ho sober. The young, the older one had gone off to school by this point and she was plenty wounded and still is, carries around a lot of resentment.
But the other one, the younger one lived at home with us at this time. And so, you know, I get sober. Mom spins out, mom gets sober, the kid spins out. So this was the sort of the natural next step in our, I think, family’s evolution. And it was really painful. It was really painful to watch her do that. It was really [00:24:00] painful for me to be getting healthy while she was not.
Um, in this particular case, she’s, uh, she’s the kid who’s most like me, so I sort of got her, I, I understood her. Um, we were. We were quite bonded. And then she just started to kind of say, Nope, I don’t, I don’t want this bond anymore. Mm-hmm. And so, you know, in my own recovery, and then also in Rebecca’s, we just let her, we let her spin out.
Um, we put a roof over her head, we put food on the table, we put, um, you know, we put expectations on her for school. But she basically ran the show. She ran her own show for about a year. Um, and, you know. Got in trouble, didn’t do well in school, you know, had some really toxic friendships, um, that we just sat, sat back and watched and kind of tried to, you know, scaffold as much as possible because it’s almost like we were like, she, it’s her turn, you know?
It’s like it’s her turn and it’s dangerous to do [00:25:00] that with Were you just trying, were you just trying to keep her safe during this time? Yeah, pretty much. Pretty much just make sure that she, and let her make her decisions. Yeah. Um, we had a lot of help. We had, we got into therapy, the two of us. Uh, you know, and we, um, you know, we.
It was, it was a really challenging time to Mary’s credit. Um, she’s a kid who needs to kind of work it out on her own a little bit like me again. And so she, when she did, she started to take her own, uh, like, I wouldn’t call it sobriety, but uh, her own recovery, uh, in, into account and, um, advocate for herself and make her choices and, um.
She’s delightful. We sat down last night, we watched Goodwill Hunting together. She’s like, dad, you wanna watch Goodwill Hunting? And I was like, okay, but this one’s gonna, this one’s gonna poke you in the ribs. You know? And um, but she’s really thoughtful about her own process and I, you know, I wish there was a, like a moment I could point to and say, oh, this is when she figured it [00:26:00] out or came back.
Um. But the reality is, it just was, I think, kind of the slow and steady, he wins the race mentality. Um, and, and I think time. Time takes time. So, you know, when people are trying to heal, we can’t expect them, we can’t hurry them along. And so. Both of them still have their trigger points. Both of them still have their anger.
Both of them still, uh, don’t trust certain things. Um, I don’t think either one of them is concerned about us drinking, but when I get angry or when mom starts to over-function, that’s a traumatic relapse experience for them, you know? Mm-hmm. Um, and so we have to be aware of that and be stewarding that and.
I dunno if I quite answered your question, but that’s Yeah, absolutely. I, I was curious, so it’s kinda white for us. Yeah. I was curious, uh, what, in those moments, especially early on where, you [00:27:00] know, she was upset and acting out, how did you get grounded or stay regulated or recover from those really intense?
Was it like, did you guys, I didn’t know fight or. Um, Mary and I, um, like how specifically did you take care of yourself in those really intense moments? Well, um, I love that question and I, and I, I’m trying to think about, I know globally at that point, I was still, um. Still in meetings. I still was meeting with Dave and Jim.
I still had my regular therapy appointment. I still had, uh, we added a therapist that was a parenting specialist that Rebecca and I met with. Um, so I had a lot of my own scaffolding. I had a lot of my own support. I had good friends, really, really sacred friend who loves my kids dearly and is able to like, uh, [00:28:00] advocate for them and for me and our family.
Like he was really, really even handed about. Like helping me kind of navigate some stuff. So I had people to talk to, I had people to navigate. I also had, by that point, a real awareness that this is probably my fault. Like I, I did this. I, I created this scenario. Um, did Rebecca help? Yeah, absolutely. A hundred percent.
Did Mary have her own contributions? For sure. Abby too? A hundred percent. But I just was like, what do I need to do here and how can I make this worse? I knew how to make it worse. I knew how to make it worse, and I was like, how can I make this worse? Okay, don’t do that. Do literally anything else. What would make it worse?
I mean, I could, I could get in a fight with her. I could take her car keys, I could ground her, I could, um. Play high and mighty. I could play. Why aren’t you more like me? Kind of game? Like, look at how much work I’m [00:29:00] doing. Why don’t you appreciate what I’m bringing to the table Now that I’ve, you know, got all this, uh, sobriety two years, three years under my belt, like, I could have made it worse in any number of ways.
Um, and even in the moment I was aware that I knew how to make it worse. And I think, again, for me. The reason or the way that I know that I’m in trouble is when my anger is running the show. Mm-hmm. So even if I’m driving in the car, like sometimes I’ll, sometimes that’s the first time I’ll know that I’m depressed or angry or, uh, like dis is that I’ll, I’ll start cursing it other cars in the, and I’m like, wait a second, what is that?
Because. That’s new or that’s like not helpful, like what is going on there? So I have to like, uh, but you know, and she, ’cause I loved her so much, I love her so much, uh, is capable of making me angrier than anybody on the planet. Like, so I just had [00:30:00] to choose whether or not I was gonna take the bait every time, every single time.
And I still do. Um, I had an experience the other night. I, I, I don’t mind sharing this because I had an experience the other night. One of ’em, one of my kids. Screamed at me. Literally like went off for like, I mean, she was really upset and she took it out on me and I just, I was at the dinner table and I just sat there and she was standing in the kitchen and just yelling.
And I had a couple of experiences. One is, I was like, I recognize that’s me. She learned that from me. Yeah. And, and I just sat there and I was like, yeah. And she was screaming and I go, you sound really, really upset. She’s like, fuck off. And she turned around and slammed the door. But I, I was able to stay, like I didn’t take the bait.
I didn’t, I didn’t go into like, who do you think you are? And this isn’t my problem, and dah, dah, dah. I just let her have it. And then, you know, a couple days later she [00:31:00] apologized and, uh, that’s fine. She needs to take her own time. But I was really just like, kind of like, Hmm, I did it. I did. I look at that. I didn’t, uh, I didn’t, I didn’t screw up.
I didn’t, uh, take the bait. I didn’t just let my, uh, let the, you know, first part of me, the angry part of me win that. That’s pretty cool. Hmm. I like that. I like this guy. You know? Yeah. That, that’s pretty cool to be able to not get That’s fun. Get defensive and stay grounded and have sort of, I mean, it almost sounded like an out-of-body experience where you’re just like observing the scene without attaching to it.
I, I, I’ll tell you about another out of body experience I had. This isn’t strictly part of my, but I, it was last summer and um, I think the greatest movie of all time is Who Framed Roger Rabbit. I’m not even kidding. I can defend it to the end of the earth, but I had this who framed Roger Rabbit movie, which was, um.
I had a little cartoon bird land on my shoulder. I was in a, I was in some kind of argument with Rebecca and I heard myself saying, Rebecca’s driving me crazy. She’s driving me crazy. [00:32:00] Oh my God. She’s driving me crazy. Rebecca is your wife, to be clear. Yeah, Rebecca’s my wife. She, so this bird lands on my shoulder and the bird says no part of her is driving part of you crazy.
And I literally heard it with my ears and, and then it flew away. But then as soon as I, as soon as I accepted that, I realized I have options now. Uh, first option was I could focus on the part of her that was driving me crazy or I could focus on a different part. Wow. And the second one was I could focus from the part of me that was being driven crazy.
Or I could focus from a different part. And so when I had that experience, and literally, I, I, I, people don’t believe me when I say this, but like I, I feel like I could actually still feel the bird on my shoulder, but I, um, I had options. And when you have options, you have power. And like, I feel like, okay. I think for me it’s really all about just recognizing that I have options and, uh.
Options means agency. And agency means power. And if I have power, then I can actually [00:33:00] influence people, including my kids. So the power that I had the other day was to do nothing. Yeah. And when I did nothing, it was the best thing for my kid who,
yeah. Same kid the other day. I walked in, she was crying about something and I thought about all my options. Uh. Uh, I could just like ask her if she’s okay and keep doing my thing. I could, I could try and get her to stop crying. I could turn on the TV or distract her, but I just pulled out the chair and sat down at the table.
Just sat there. Just sat there and waited for her to say whatever she wanted to say, which ended up being something about the state of the world and how overwhelmed she is and mm-hmm. You know, I just kind of said, yeah. It’s a lot of, lot of stuff validated her feelings. It’s a lot of stuff you guys, people, you, people your age are thinking about a lot of things they don’t need to be thinking about right now.
And that’s really hard. And yeah, [00:34:00] so she was like, and also this guy just died on Game of Thrones and I was like, yeah, babe, that’s hard too. So, you know, it kind of ended in this pleasant little experience. But, um, yeah, I don’t, I don’t know if there’s any value in any of those two stories, but that’s. No.
Absolutely. I think it’s, that’s where I’m at right now with those guys. And, and listen, I’m impressed that, you know, and probably because of the work that you do, you didn’t rush into fix. Like a lot of people wanna rush in to fix. Oh my God, no. Thank you. So have no interest in just giving her space and just, sometimes all we need is someone to sit in the mud with us for a minute and validate our experience and just be like, yeah, I could see how you feel like that.
Yeah. Like, yeah, that absolutely sucks. Without trying to make, like trying to make her feel different. Yeah. ’cause I feel like we do that enough by ourselves as a self avoidance Yeah. Avoidance of feelings. So to be able to sit [00:35:00] with her is really powerful. Yeah. Well, again, people sit, I mean, I. When people ask me, nobody ever asked me this question, how do you, how’d you do that?
I, I, but my answer is the same, which is I practiced, literally, I practiced, I practiced. Mm-hmm. I practice, I rehearse. Moments. Uh, I, I, I script things out. I make sure that they, they are aligned with the, the, the impact I hope to have. Of course, I can’t control it when it comes outta my mouth, but like, I can, I can like script things.
I, I practice, I have the benefit of sitting in this, I’m in my counseling office right now. I sit in this chair, you know, 30 hours a week and help people practice. So I got a little bit of extra practice time that a lot of people don’t have, but, um. But no, I practice people like, I don’t know if I can do that.
I go, of course you can. Like every, every single thing you know how to do, you know how to do because you practice, that includes walking and speaking English. Like that you practiced and you were bad at it, and then you got good at it. So I just decided this is a thing that I [00:36:00] needed to get good at because if I didn’t, you know, my, in my version of rock bottom, I was staring the end of my marriage, the end of my relationship with my kids, and I was staring at the end of my career in the face and into my life.
In the face. I was like, no, I can’t. I don’t want that. So I’m gonna learn how to do this other thing, you know? Yeah. I mean, you have to like consider all the options like we do and Yeah. You know, choose something different. I’m really getting such a, an intense clarity around how when we change, how we relate to our feelings.
Mm-hmm. And take moments of self-reflection and like you said, practice and not expecting too much of ourselves. You know, this idea of, you know, when you do something new, you’re gonna be bad at it. It just like showing up is the win. Yeah. Like taking your turn at bat is the win. It doesn’t matter if it’s terrible.
Yeah. I, I always joke around about, I told my husband I’m gonna start doing [00:37:00] bar class. Sure. And I’d go to bar class and I was horrible at it. I couldn’t do it. And I’d come home and he would be like, how is it? And I was like, it was, it was terrible. But I went, yeah. After about six months, he’s like, when’s it gonna get better?
And I was like, I don’t know. Maybe I am better. But I’m not even focused on that anymore. I’m just focused on showing up. Yeah, yeah, yeah. Yeah. I like that. And now time, we got better. So I feel like if we can sort of take the specific lesson of. You know, just starting a habit or starting to practice, it’s gonna be bad.
And then pretty soon over time it’ll get better. Then take it, you know, the lesson here and apply it there. Yeah, it’s all good. This is a hard thing to, like, the idea of time though is, is like, I’m so glad I’m 52 because I actually know that time is a real thing, you know? Uh, like 20 years ago, I have memories from 20 years ago and I was an adult.
Like, I wasn’t in high school 20 years ago. I wasn’t, you know, I was like, 20 years ago I was a grownup and my kids, they don’t have any concept of time. They don’t, everything is right now, [00:38:00] everything is right now. And I’m like, no, it’s not right now. Like, there’s time, like you can figure this out. Like it, it’s just gonna take some time.
And I, and I used to get mad at my kids for. Not being as far along as me. Yeah. Um, and every once in a while I’ll still go, why don’t you do this thing? I do this thing. And I go, oh yeah. It took me like 40 years to learn. I’m so guilty of that. Oh my god. You know, I’m always sending self-help stuff to my kids.
They can’t stand it. I know. I’m just like, I had to stop. I’m, and, and, and you can’t just say, tr trust me. Please just trust me. Just do this. I promise you. If you learn like. Like this is an easy one. I, I joked about Apple earlier, but it’s like if you learn investing right now, like if you just decide that your money is worth like stewarding instead of just like surviving on, I promise you, you will be like, I promise you, you will appreciate not starting at 40 or 50.
Yeah. Which is advice I got when I was 20. You know, and I was like, [00:39:00] no, can’t do it. Are you kidding me? No. The market’s too scary and I’m not gonna, and there’s no way. And I gotta, I gotta make sure that I still can figure out how to play my video games and like. So I don’t expect, I mean, listen, most kids are just barely trying to pay their bills, right?
No, a hundred percent. A hundred percent. I know. I’m saying it like I have a hundred dollars to invest. That’s crazy. I’m just, I’m just like, but uh, I always say I never, I have never once learned anything in my life. Never once learned anything in my life before I was ready to learn it. And so I try to get my kids to be ready to learn something and they’re just not.
And I go, oh, I guess they’re just not ready to learn that. And it’s certainly not. Yeah. And I have found it actually creates resistance. Right. Yeah. Like Oh, totally. Yeah. I had to, my husband’s like, just stop it. You’re making it worse. Yeah, yeah. Like, okay, stop all that. Yeah. Now my new, my new question with them is something like, do you wanna know what I think about that?
Because, yeah, I got. I got a lot of ideas, but maybe you don’t wanna know what they are [00:40:00] and I’d rather not talk if you’re not gonna listen. So, yeah. Uh, maybe, maybe I just skip that step. Yeah. I, I started getting to this place with my kids a while ago where I was, where I’ll be like, did you want feedback?
Because they’ll come in and I’ll be like, wow. Mm-hmm. And so IU used to treat that as an invitation. To help them problem solve, which, yeah. Yeah, yeah. It is not, so I have learned to ask, did you just want a vet or do you want some feedback? How can I support you? Yeah, yeah, yeah. But the one in our, the one in our house is, uh, do you wanna be helped, heard or hugged?
Hurt. Heard. Oh, heard. I was like, how is heard? An option? Yeah. Or I could punch you in the face. Would that help? No. Do you wanna be helped? Heard or hugged? Um, because helped heard or hugged, you know, because. Uh, you start trying to help somebody who just wants a hug, you’re, you’re getting it wrong. That’s so funny.
I tell my husband in our relationship, you know, it used to be like, you know, he’d wanna fix, you [00:41:00] know? Yeah. Or he would just listen and not gimme any feedback. And I would be like, I was talking to a plant. Yeah. So I decided to ask for what I needed. Yeah. So it, I’d be like, Hey, I need to unload. Yeah. And you don’t have to do anything but listen.
Yep. And at the end of this, I need a poor baby and a hug. Yeah. And he’d like brace himself. He’d be like, okay, go. I got you. I could just unload and then I’d pause and give him the poor baby and he’d go, that’s your turn. Oh, poor baby. Your turn and cute line. And go. Yeah.
Sometimes it’s helpful to know what it is that, and I’ve asked my kids because, you know, listen, I’m, I’m like you. I listen to people all day. Yeah. And so sometimes at the end of the day. Um, he comes home from work now and he’ll want to unload, and I’m like, um, time out. Can you ask me if I have the bandwidth to listen today?
Mm-hmm. [00:42:00] And he’d be like, oh, do you have the, and I’d be like, no, buddy. Sorry. Go talk to your dad. Yeah, yeah, yeah. So I’ve also recognized my own limitations. Yeah, yeah. Yeah. So good. Listen, uh, we could chat all day long. Um, I’m wondering, so you have marriage therapy radio, so I’m gonna leave links to that in this show.
Yep. Mm-hmm. But if people are interested in connecting with you, where can they find you? Um, yeah. Marriage Therapy radio comes out every Tuesday. Uh, that’s a space where I’m just talking to couples about how they make it work. Um, my name is Zach Brittle. The internet is, makes it easy enough to find anybody.
These days. My practice is available. I started a blog, uh, or restarted a blog. It’s called Stuff I Write. It’s on Substack and um, I am just gonna try and practice like writing, practice writing still there. So if you wanna know what I think about, I think my last article was about the Grateful Dead. Um, about [00:43:00] stuff that I write about.
Then you go to stuff i write.com. Um, yeah, I think it’ll be interesting to hear your process. You don’t think like, yeah, I think most people do. I think being in the, you know, mental health space, you think about things differently and I hope so. Yeah. Yeah. I’m trying to use that space to write about things that aren’t strictly relationship related.
’cause, you know, I spend all my time there, but, um, yeah, if I get caught up in an idea. That I want to just think out loud about or write out loud about, then I, I usually put it there, so, yeah. Well, listen, I, I, I think there’s, um, such a need for, um, people that are married to have other resources and listen to different conversations about how other people make it work.
Um, I’m scheduled with my husband to Cool. Come on. We’ve been married for, well, we’ve been together 31 years. Um, we met right when I first got sober, he had already been sober. Yeah. Got it. So, um. We definitely have a process, so I, yeah, so excited to [00:44:00] share that. Yeah. Yeah. I look forward to talking to you about it.
Um, and yeah, we’re all just kind of making it work, I guess, you know, trying to figure out how to do the next thing. So that’s, uh, that’s what it’s about. Love it. Love it. Well, Zach, thank you so much for your time today and I’ll look forward to our conversation. Very cool. Thank you.
Um, bye.
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