Airing Addiction: The Impact of Family Support - with Laurel ChaisonAiring Addiction: The Impact of Family Support - with Laurel Chaison
Airing Addiction
Laurel Chaison shares her experience of standing by Jesse through addiction, jail and early recovery, while facing her own gambling addiction. Together with hosts Lisa Blanchard and Jesse, she talks about family impact, mutual recovery, faith, boundaries and raising children in a home grounded in sobriety.
54:05•30 Jul 2026
Family, Love and "Cardboard Crack": Laurel Chaison on Supporting Recovery
Episode Overview
- Family members can develop their own addictions and trauma responses while trying to support a loved one with substance use.
- Enabling often comes from fear and love, but outside support and information are crucial to shift towards healthier boundaries.
- Mutual aid programmes like AA and GA, alongside counselling and faith communities, can provide ongoing structure and connection.
- Recovery as a couple involves separate support systems, shared routines, and intentional time together and apart.
- Honest, age-appropriate conversations with children about addiction and recovery help normalise the topic and reduce shame.
“"Recovery is so possible… All you need is your ears and the desire to stop drinking."”
How do people find strength in their journey to sobriety? This conversation gives a front-row seat to what recovery looks like when a whole family is strapped in for the ride. Laurel Chaison sits down with hosts Lisa Blanchard and Jesse Chaison (her husband of nearly 12 years) to talk about loving someone through active addiction and what that does to partners, parents and kids.
Laurel traces their story from teenage “first love” and rebellion, through jail visits and late-night panic, to long-term recovery and a very different family life today. She’s disarmingly honest about her own gambling addiction, jokingly calling scratch cards “cardboard crack”, and how her behaviour mirrored Jesse’s alcohol and drug use. You’ll hear how enabling can feel like love, why it’s so hard to walk away, and how arrest and mandated treatment at Spectrum became a turning point.
Laurel and Jesse talk openly about mutual recovery: AA for him, GA for her, church communities, counselling, and a shared focus on connection. As Jesse puts it, they went from “two people who are so isolated and… selfish” to a couple grounded in family, faith and fellowship. Lisa weaves in clear, accessible brain science about how loved ones’ brains are affected in ways similar to the person with addiction, normalising that frantic urge to keep someone safe.
There’s also practical talk about boundaries, learning that “no is a complete sentence”, and juggling three young children with meetings, service, study and date nights. This episode speaks directly to partners, parents and anyone who’s ever thought, “Am I the only one going through this?” It offers realism over fairy tales, while still holding on to one central message: recovery and healing are possible, for the whole family.
If someone you love is struggling with addiction, what kind of support system are you building for yourself as well as for them?
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