Stage 1 of 7 Loving someone in Addiction

Stage 1 of 7 Loving someone in Addiction

What can we learn from those who have battled addiction? This instalment of The Recovery Pastor Podcast opens up stage one of a seven-part series on loving someone in active addiction, and it hits on that first brutal moment: shell shock. Shannon, a recovery pastor, talks through what happens when you first find out a loved one is in addiction and your whole world flips.

Drawing from 60–70 responses to a Facebook post, she pieces together common emotions and questions people shared, stressing this is “not a clinical study” but real-life experience from real families. You’ll hear the raw inner dialogue many face: “What did I do wrong? How did I not protect them?

How did I miss the warning signs?” Shannon warns that the “woulda, coulda, shoulda will destroy you,” because it keeps you stuck in the past instead of looking after your own wellbeing in the present. She walks through emotions like feeling lost, guilt, shame, rage and sheer overwhelm, and she challenges the idea that addiction only happens to “bad” families.

As she puts it, “Addiction makes good people do bad things,” and it “does not discriminate.” Shannon also talks about the “normal scale” we build from our parents or caregivers, and how discovering addiction in the family can shatter that sense of what’s normal, whether you’re the parent of someone in addiction or the child of a parent in addiction.

Faith and community run through everything: Shannon urges both people in addiction and their loved ones to seek help, to talk to someone, and to pray for one another. She reminds everyone that there is “light at the end of the tunnel” and that staying frozen in shell shock can become its own comfort zone.

If you or someone you care about is stuck in that first stunned stage, could this honest conversation be the nudge to reach out for support?