How to Stop People-Pleasing & Rebuild Connection in Family Addiction with Dr. Julie ShaferHow to Stop People-Pleasing & Rebuild Connection in Family Addiction with Dr. Julie Shafer
Families Navigating Addiction & Recovery
Jeff Jones and Dr Julie Shafer talk about how people‑pleasing shows up in families dealing with addiction and how it affects connection and communication. They focus on practical ways to calm yourself, set clearer boundaries and shift from passive or aggressive responses to more assertive ones.
1:04:44•4 Sept 2026
Stopping People‑Pleasing and Finding Your Voice in Family Addiction
Episode Overview
- People‑pleasing often develops as a way to avoid conflict and hang on to connection, but taken too far it erases a person’s authentic self.
- Substance use blunts emotions, making genuine connection harder and leaving loved ones grieving a relationship that feels increasingly distant.
- Learning the difference between passive, aggressive and assertive communication helps partners treat both people’s rights as equal.
- Effective boundaries work best when they are planned calmly, expressed directly while everyone is sober, and backed by a clear idea of what you will do next.
- Recognising emotional states, naming repeated patterns and taking short breaks to self‑soothe can stop arguments from repeating in the same harmful way.
“"You can’t control other people. The goal is to recognise when you’ve been pulled into dysfunction and figure out how to get yourself out of it."”
How do people cope with the challenges of staying sober while still trying to keep the family together? This conversation between host Jeff Jones and psychologist Dr Julie Shafer goes straight into that everyday tug-of-war, especially for partners and parents who feel stuck in the role of the "nice one". With more than 20 years’ experience, Dr Shafer talks about people‑pleasing as a habit that often grows quietly inside families affected by addiction.
You’ll hear her describe how partners start "walking on eggshells", handing over that extra drink, or smoothing things over just to keep the peace, even while a voice inside is saying, "I don’t want to do this." She draws a clear line between passive, aggressive and assertive communication, and explains why trying to manage another person’s reactions "actually creates disconnection" rather than closeness.
A big theme is the emotional cost of addiction on the non‑using family members: the grief of missing real connection, the spiral into anxiety, and the fear that any conflict means the relationship is over. Jeff adds a family‑systems lens, stressing the need to first "enable health within your own body" by calming the nervous system before setting any boundary.
Together they sketch out very practical steps: pausing to notice what’s happening in your body, labelling emotions, recognising repeated patterns, and planning what you’ll do differently next time. Dr Shafer also shares a simple script for starting tough conversations: check if it’s a good time, name what you see in the other person’s situation, then share how you feel and what you’re asking for.
As she reminds people‑pleasers, "You can’t control other people," but you can change how you show up. If you’ve ever felt torn between keeping the peace and telling the truth, this episode offers concrete language and small, realistic steps to rebuild connection without losing yourself. Which part of your next family conversation could you gently do differently?
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