"Peel the f*cking onion."

WEBVTT - This file has cues.

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This story involves aspects of
addiction and self-harm.

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Listen with care. Hey, how are you?
And if you say you're fine, I'm gonna

00:00:10.480 --> 00:00:14.760
assume you mean, like the acronym.
Freaked out, insecure,

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neurotic and emotional.
So,

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have you heard the term life quake?
Well, in this podcast,

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we talk about life quakes, those
unpredictable seismic shifts that,

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in time, lead to profound
personal growth and empowerment.

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Here you can expect heartfelt stories
that reveal both the joy and the

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discomfort of unexpected change.
And I think you're gonna like it

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here.
My name is Shawn,

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and this is something shifted.
Today's story belongs to SJ.

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The shift for me was having to come
face to face with my biggest fear.

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On my own.
Two small kids facing a future as a

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single parent. That was my fear.
Doing it alone. That's next.

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This is a story about love.
Although it's not a traditional love

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story, it's about love, addiction,
the fear of not being loved, the kind

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of love that can keep you alive.
It's about a mother's love,

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about facing your greatest fear
and learning to love yourself

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through it all.
I always think of healing as peeling

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the onion, and it was time to go to
another layer of the onion. I had to.

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That's when I realized, stop worrying
about I'm traumatizing my kids.

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I'm traumatizing my kids and
peel them. Can I swear?

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Peel the fucking onion.
If you're an avid radio listener,

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you might recognize Sue's voice from
a Cape Town talk radio station.

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And based on her accent alone,
you'd be correct to assume that she

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grew up in the UK, but her accent
doesn't reveal the affair her

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biological parents had in the 1980s
under apartheid's Immorality Act.

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In her first book,
Killing Caroline, S.J. reveals

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the shocking lie created to cover
up her birth parents forbidden

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relationship and the hurried
adoption of their illegitimate

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baby named Caroline at birth.
She was renamed Sarah Jane after

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being abandoned by her birth parents
and then adopted by a British couple.

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SJ was only seven weeks old,
and this history means her family

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tree has many branches. Jeepers.
Okay. Oh, gosh. So biological mother.

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Biological father. Don't know.
Biological mother. Do know.

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Biological father.
And my siblings from him.

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I have a half sibling from my
biological mother who I don't

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speak to.
I have adopted an adoptive mother.

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My adoptive father has died.
My adoptive mum lives in the UK.

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Um, I had an adoptive brother.
He also died. Where do we get to now?

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My current setup is that I am a
mom of two children.

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So depending on how you look at it,
SJ is either one of two,

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one of 5 or 1 of eight children.
And maybe all this complicated

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Branching is why S.J. decided that
if she ever had kids herself,

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she would do anything to protect
them, and also why she did not,

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under any circumstance,
want to be a single parent.

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Let's be clear there are many people
who are fantastic single parents who

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even seek it out as a life path.
But SJ only wanted to parent

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with a dedicated partner,
and part of that reasoning about

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parenting in partnership comes from
Suga's original Kwek and not being

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raised by her biological parents.
And that has had the most profound

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impact on me than any other thing in
my life that that relinquishment.

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It has set up who I am.
And why I became.

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Why I am the why the way I it's
my why.

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Largely not that I'm in bondage
by that.

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I don't feel held hostage these
days by that, but it's set in

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motion an awful lot of things.
Feelings of being less than.

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Feelings of not being good enough.
My own addictions that spurred

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from that.
My relationship with my adoptive

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mother. So many things.
Because it's such a pre-verbal

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trauma. There's no, um.
You don't exist before trauma

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has come into your life.
You're seven weeks old.

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This is the fundamental fracture,
that irreversible quake in life.

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SJ has endured many things that would
make most of us cower in a corner.

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But the one thing that she
feared the most.

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Being a single parent happened
in 2023.

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I made the decision when my son
was about four months old that I

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told my partner, you have to leave.
I told you this was a story

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about a mother's love.
And that part of the story will

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become clear.
But it's also a story about the kind

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of love that keeps us alive, love
that wrecks us, and love addiction.

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So to appreciate the depth of JJ's
decision to become a single parent,

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to hold her story in our hearts
with empathy.

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We need to journey back to 2007,
when SJ was 26 years old and in a

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rehab clinic. Um, I was in treatment.
I was in rehab for various

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addictions and behavioral things,
behavioral addictions.

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And I had I was in a different
treatment center,

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and I'd started self-harming
again in this treatment center.

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And that we can't hold you in
this space.

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We are here for people who've got
addictions we can't be dealing with.

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You need to go somewhere else for
a bit and ended up in a clinic,

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um, at but kind of with clinic.
And, um, one day there I was,

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and I used to have my arms, like,
bandage from, from elbow to wrist.

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And I was walking down the hallway,
and the most attractive man that I'd

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ever seen in my whole life walked
down the hallway towards me and

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literally took my breath away and
sparked some sort of hope or joy

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or something in me that I hadn't
felt for a really long time, like I

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was on suicide watch at the time.
I was trying to take myself out

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every day.
It was a really bleak time, and down

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the hallway walked this person,
and this person is now the father

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of my two beautiful children.
Nearly 20 something years later.

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If you've ever watched a series or a
movie where a character is battling

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addiction and is in treatment,
you'll have seen a health care

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professional give that patient
very strict instructions to not

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develop a romantic relationship,
especially not with someone who

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is also battling addiction.
He was in Kenilworth Clinic for a

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heroin detox. He was a heroin addict.
You know, they say in these

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treatment facilities, you know,
no fraternizing. For obvious reasons.

00:09:09.790 --> 00:09:12.190
Um, you know, and if you start
getting a little bit too close

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to somebody, they come in.
The nurses used to say,

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whatever you're doing, keep doing it.
They'd say to him, keep talking

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to her. Keep talking to her.
Keep talking to her.

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We're going to call this man Inva.
This is not his real name.

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Enver would sit with S.J. every day,
holding her hand, talking to her and

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giving her a reason to stay alive.
That day. He literally saved my life.

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At that point, at the age of,
what, 2627, when all I was

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trying to do at that point was
find ways to avoid the nurse.

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Escape from the asylum and try
and kill myself and that meeting.

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At such a profound time of my life
that's in there, that's embedded

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in my limbic system somewhere.
Then there was me and him.

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And our relationship has been a very,
very complex one.

00:10:21.760 --> 00:10:26.000
But suffice to say,
we've stayed around each other long

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enough to conceive two children.
If you've journeyed with addiction

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yourself or with someone you love,
you'll understand this.

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The complexity, the messiness,
the realness of a love that

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saves and a love that hurts.
If you've not lived with or near

00:10:49.760 --> 00:10:54.280
addiction, we need you to
suspend judgment here and to let

00:10:54.280 --> 00:10:58.900
go of any assumptions that you
might have about addiction.

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Addiction is something that
starts as a very useful mechanism

00:11:07.300 --> 00:11:12.900
to prevent pain, you know,
or might talks about a normal

00:11:12.900 --> 00:11:18.500
reaction to an abnormal situation.
It is an absolutely direct response

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to trauma, whatever that trauma might
look like. I know people don't.

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People when people say trauma,
but nothing ever happened to me.

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Trauma can be a pattern of behavior.
It can be a dysfunction.

00:11:27.700 --> 00:11:30.060
It can be an event.
It can be a number of things.

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It can be an abandonment,
whatever it might be. But it is.

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The addiction begins as a as a
protection mechanism to protect

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oneself from that which we want.
We want to do that.

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We want we want for that to happen.
But then because we are not,

00:11:46.540 --> 00:11:53.020
then as addicts, given the adequate
tools to deal with the thing in a

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safe way, that becomes our safe
way until it's no longer serving

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us in that way until that.
That looks as if it's the problem.

00:12:02.590 --> 00:12:05.590
It's never the problem.
It's the unresolved trauma for

00:12:05.590 --> 00:12:08.070
for all of us.
People can get very hooked on.

00:12:08.110 --> 00:12:12.750
Why don't you just stop? Um.
Because it's a disease of the mind,

00:12:12.750 --> 00:12:15.550
and it's a disease of the body.
It's a it's a physical thing.

00:12:15.830 --> 00:12:20.590
And then it's also a, you know, the
the mind is such a powerful thing.

00:12:21.470 --> 00:12:26.230
Ever since she started treatment,
S.J. has been committed to healing.

00:12:26.630 --> 00:12:29.510
And part of healing is learning
to understand the mechanisms

00:12:29.510 --> 00:12:34.790
that she'd been using to build a
life around that original

00:12:34.790 --> 00:12:39.110
fracture of abandonment.
As much I've been clean and sober for

00:12:39.230 --> 00:12:45.710
18 years, but my biggest addiction
is codependence the love addiction

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stuff, the attachment essentially,
which all kind of probably harps

00:12:50.950 --> 00:12:53.270
back to. I'm not probably.
I know it does to being adopted

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at seven weeks old and all of
that kind of stuff.

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SG has been committed to her healing
journey and working on her sobriety

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since she left the rehab clinic,
and Enver continued to be a very

00:13:05.930 --> 00:13:09.050
important person in her life.
And in 2019,

00:13:09.050 --> 00:13:13.370
they decided to start a family.
When the 12 week scan came around,

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the couple found out they were
having a baby girl.

00:13:17.170 --> 00:13:22.690
It was also in that time that SG
found out Enver had relapsed and

00:13:22.690 --> 00:13:26.730
was using heroin again.
And then I didn't see him again

00:13:26.730 --> 00:13:30.410
until the day before I gave birth.
So I went through an entire pregnancy

00:13:30.410 --> 00:13:36.650
essentially completely alone.
It was horrendous and to the

00:13:36.650 --> 00:13:42.370
point where I'd called my
brother in Jo'burg and said,

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I'm going to give birth on my own.
Can you come? And he said, yeah.

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And he came down from Jo'burg,
and we were at our mews and berg, and

00:13:53.210 --> 00:13:56.130
my arm and my ankles are so swollen.
And I was and I was giving birth

00:13:56.130 --> 00:13:58.790
on the Wednesday.
It was Tuesday evening and I said,

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I've got to go and put my feet
in the water.

00:14:00.310 --> 00:14:05.910
And I had sent a message to to
Envers mom, who had also completely

00:14:05.910 --> 00:14:08.910
ignored me throughout my pregnancy,
his entire family. It was awful.

00:14:09.710 --> 00:14:12.670
And I sent a message and I said,
tell your son his daughter's

00:14:12.670 --> 00:14:14.670
being born tomorrow.
I hadn't heard a word from

00:14:14.670 --> 00:14:17.910
anybody for months, and I wasn't
expecting anything to happen.

00:14:18.310 --> 00:14:21.830
And my phone rang and it was him.
And I hadn't heard his voice for

00:14:21.830 --> 00:14:28.810
six months. And he said, hi, babe.
And I said, I'm giving you a 48

00:14:28.810 --> 00:14:32.430
hour pass to come and watch your
daughter being born for her sake,

00:14:32.430 --> 00:14:35.750
so that when she's older,
I can say your father bore witness

00:14:35.750 --> 00:14:41.870
to your entry into the world.
And so the next morning I got up at,

00:14:41.910 --> 00:14:46.190
you know, 6:30 in the morning,
and I went to the house, his

00:14:46.190 --> 00:14:50.750
parents house, to go and fetch him.
And he looked like you would probably

00:14:50.750 --> 00:14:53.630
imagine a heroin addict who'd been
on the street for six months,

00:14:53.630 --> 00:15:00.160
looked ill fitting clothes, very,
very thin. He looked shocking.

00:15:00.720 --> 00:15:03.560
And we got in the car and we
were driving to the hospital to

00:15:03.600 --> 00:15:06.440
go and have a baby.
And as we were, as I was driving,

00:15:06.440 --> 00:15:13.640
he said, we need to stop.
You need to stop here.

00:15:14.120 --> 00:15:16.480
And about 50 minutes later,
he came back on, came back into

00:15:16.480 --> 00:15:20.200
the car without his shirt on,
and he had literally sold the shirt

00:15:20.200 --> 00:15:23.760
off his back for heroin to use before
because he wouldn't make it through.

00:15:24.440 --> 00:15:29.040
He wouldn't make it through the
birth without having use XJS.

00:15:29.080 --> 00:15:32.760
Vision of parenthood was coming
apart at the seams.

00:15:33.400 --> 00:15:37.280
She was alone,
without any family in Cape Town

00:15:37.560 --> 00:15:42.640
with a baby and a partner in active
addiction while the world was in

00:15:42.640 --> 00:15:48.760
the grips of a global pandemic.
We had managed to claw back through

00:15:50.240 --> 00:15:57.120
the universe's grace, uh, a 12 step
programs, an awful lot of therapy.

00:15:57.500 --> 00:16:02.060
We'd managed to start piecing
together some semblance of of a life.

00:16:03.260 --> 00:16:07.140
We'd got to a point where he'd got
clean and life started to look

00:16:07.140 --> 00:16:10.660
like things could be really good.
At this point,

00:16:10.700 --> 00:16:15.900
Enver was two years sober, and that's
still considered early recovery.

00:16:16.580 --> 00:16:21.540
SJ desperately wanted another baby,
so they decided to add to their

00:16:21.540 --> 00:16:24.860
family of three.
Their son was born in December

00:16:24.860 --> 00:16:30.820
of 2022, and although Enver was
technically still sober, SJ had

00:16:30.820 --> 00:16:37.420
started noticing some warning signs.
But I was noticing that the things

00:16:37.420 --> 00:16:42.780
that are required for somebody to do
to stay clean and not just physically

00:16:42.780 --> 00:16:47.780
clean, but emotionally sober,
which for people in recovery is

00:16:47.780 --> 00:16:51.300
very often 12 step meetings.
It's a connection to we talk about

00:16:51.300 --> 00:16:54.660
a higher power. It's connection.
You know, it's Johann Hari says

00:16:54.660 --> 00:16:58.510
the opposite of of addiction
isn't sobriety, it's connection.

00:16:58.510 --> 00:17:02.190
And I started to notice that he
wasn't doing those things.

00:17:02.390 --> 00:17:08.230
And the fear that welled up in me
of I can't be a single mom again.

00:17:08.870 --> 00:17:13.630
But because SJ had continued to
do the inner work in her journey,

00:17:14.270 --> 00:17:19.030
she knew full well that the fear came
from her own fractures and wounds.

00:17:20.150 --> 00:17:24.350
My core is to hang on is not.
Don't be abandoned, don't be

00:17:24.350 --> 00:17:27.790
abandoned, don't be abandoned.
So I'll hang on to things that I

00:17:27.790 --> 00:17:32.390
should be letting go of.
And so there was.

00:17:32.390 --> 00:17:35.870
Yeah, there was the fear of,
I can't do this on my own.

00:17:36.870 --> 00:17:39.830
Uh,
I don't want to do this on my own.

00:17:41.150 --> 00:17:45.510
And it was like this monster that
was just growing and growing and

00:17:45.510 --> 00:17:52.710
growing and growing. Um.
And the fear was so multi-layered.

00:17:52.990 --> 00:17:56.190
It was.
I alone am not enough for my kids,

00:17:56.630 --> 00:18:01.090
it was.
I'm not going to be able to

00:18:01.130 --> 00:18:05.130
protect them from the trauma
that I experienced as a child,

00:18:05.130 --> 00:18:08.690
that now, as a parent, I'm trying.
I will do anything to protect

00:18:08.690 --> 00:18:13.650
them from being traumatized.
And yet, this is the one thing

00:18:13.650 --> 00:18:17.810
that I don't know if I can do.
This is the part of the story about a

00:18:17.810 --> 00:18:23.730
mother's love, the kind of love that
gives you courage to step into fear.

00:18:24.530 --> 00:18:29.690
And then when my son was about
four months old, I thought,

00:18:29.810 --> 00:18:35.610
if things carry on this way,
he's going to relapse and I

00:18:35.690 --> 00:18:40.570
can't have my kids around that.
I was still dealing with the trauma

00:18:40.570 --> 00:18:45.890
of of of his using, relapsing,
getting clean, relapsing,

00:18:45.890 --> 00:18:50.170
getting clean of when our daughter
was born and the first couple of

00:18:50.170 --> 00:18:53.810
years of her life, I was still
processing that in therapy, like what

00:18:53.810 --> 00:19:00.110
that was and how crazy that was.
And now it had happened again.

00:19:00.230 --> 00:19:03.230
And I had not one,
but two small children.

00:19:03.830 --> 00:19:08.830
And I was the main breadwinner.
My biggest fear had just happened.

00:19:08.950 --> 00:19:13.550
And yet I was the one that had told
him to go. I'd facilitated that.

00:19:14.110 --> 00:19:17.670
So that was the quake.
The worst thing in the world that

00:19:17.670 --> 00:19:22.750
could happen to me as I exist is
happening, which is that I am a

00:19:22.750 --> 00:19:29.710
single parent and it's all on me.
SJ did the hardest thing and

00:19:29.710 --> 00:19:34.230
faced her biggest fear.
And the wheels, they came off

00:19:34.230 --> 00:19:40.670
completely. I don't have family here.
And the loneliness and aloneness

00:19:40.670 --> 00:19:46.550
of it was breathtaking.
I was postpartum.

00:19:47.350 --> 00:19:50.870
I was trying to feed a child.
You know, I had a kid on the boob.

00:19:50.870 --> 00:19:54.470
I had one who was just a little
bit over three, whose dad had

00:19:54.470 --> 00:20:00.360
disappeared. The idol of her life.
So this man who used to tuck her

00:20:00.360 --> 00:20:03.040
into bed at night,
wake her up in the morning, bath her,

00:20:03.080 --> 00:20:09.440
do her hair. Her God had disappeared.
And I was trying to deal with that.

00:20:09.440 --> 00:20:13.840
His abandonment of us and every
abandonment issue in me just

00:20:13.840 --> 00:20:16.480
going up, up, up.
The truly hard part about this

00:20:16.480 --> 00:20:20.680
is that in so many ways,
we've lost the essence of the village

00:20:21.000 --> 00:20:26.200
that helps raise a child that step
in when the parents need help.

00:20:26.520 --> 00:20:31.160
Nobody jumps up and down and says,
let's come and help everyone just go.

00:20:31.480 --> 00:20:34.040
She just has to get on with it.
She'll she'll cope because

00:20:34.040 --> 00:20:37.120
that's what we do.
Except that very often we're not

00:20:37.120 --> 00:20:42.920
coping. Not only was S.j not coping.
She was also doing a job that

00:20:42.920 --> 00:20:46.880
required for her to switch the
microphone on and pretend that

00:20:46.880 --> 00:20:49.040
she was doing well for the sake
of the listeners.

00:20:49.680 --> 00:20:54.760
That morning we came breakfast.
You know, and do this whole thing

00:20:55.480 --> 00:21:00.580
and the mask was exhausting.
If you press that button,

00:21:00.580 --> 00:21:05.060
the red light goes on and all the
luck that you're going through it,

00:21:05.100 --> 00:21:09.220
it might as well not be happening.
I would come off air and be drained

00:21:09.620 --> 00:21:14.660
and also feel like a fraud,
because so much of my personality

00:21:14.660 --> 00:21:19.100
and so much of what I want to bring
to my radio show is authenticity.

00:21:20.340 --> 00:21:26.100
But nobody knew what was going on.
And how broken I was.

00:21:26.100 --> 00:21:30.540
I was just broken.
I just used to cry myself to

00:21:30.540 --> 00:21:33.780
sleep and into my pillow because
I didn't want to wake the kids.

00:21:34.500 --> 00:21:37.180
I got sick one day.
I was at work. I was on air.

00:21:37.940 --> 00:21:40.860
By the time the show started at
seven, by the time 10:00,

00:21:40.860 --> 00:21:44.820
dripping sweat barely drive home and.
And the nanny who was looking

00:21:44.820 --> 00:21:48.060
after my kid. God bless the nanny.
I mean, she needs a shout out because

00:21:48.060 --> 00:21:55.380
she put up with a whole load of shit.
She was leaving and I had no one,

00:21:55.580 --> 00:21:58.670
and I literally put on Facebook,
which I am not.

00:21:58.710 --> 00:22:01.510
You know, it's not my thing.
I'm here with two kids and I'm

00:22:01.510 --> 00:22:04.910
ill and I need help.
Strangers turned up to my house.

00:22:04.950 --> 00:22:08.470
A friend of mine in Durban called
people they had in Milnerton who

00:22:08.470 --> 00:22:13.070
came through to the southern
suburbs and helped me look after

00:22:13.070 --> 00:22:17.430
my kids because I was bedridden.
It makes sense why doing

00:22:17.430 --> 00:22:20.990
parenting alone was the scariest
thing I could imagine.

00:22:21.870 --> 00:22:25.350
Remember what she said earlier?
That the opposite of addiction is

00:22:25.350 --> 00:22:30.990
not sobriety. It's connection.
And as a recovering addict,

00:22:31.310 --> 00:22:34.990
SJ knew she was choosing to
sever connections.

00:22:35.590 --> 00:22:39.670
She was signing up to be alone
when she told Enver to leave.

00:22:40.590 --> 00:22:44.990
And the thing that feeds that
loneliness is shame.

00:22:45.350 --> 00:22:51.910
An awful lot of people had walked
the journey with Enver and I.

00:22:54.990 --> 00:22:58.010
And they'd been present for an
awful lot of the relapses.

00:22:58.010 --> 00:23:00.490
And that he's clean again.
And the relapses.

00:23:00.770 --> 00:23:05.450
And I felt embarrassed.
I thought people would be like, well,

00:23:06.730 --> 00:23:11.410
you had a second baby with him.
Particularly people who didn't

00:23:11.410 --> 00:23:17.650
understand addiction. I felt ashamed.
Because most of us do not really

00:23:17.650 --> 00:23:21.650
understand addiction.
We tend to approach it with

00:23:21.650 --> 00:23:27.090
rationality and rules,
but it doesn't work like that.

00:23:27.650 --> 00:23:30.730
Addiction is such a is such a
curious beast.

00:23:30.730 --> 00:23:34.570
We talk about it in the rooms as
being cunning, baffling and powerful,

00:23:34.570 --> 00:23:44.010
in that one assumes if your partner
and the father of your children is an

00:23:44.090 --> 00:23:50.650
active heroin user, of course you're
not going to allow them to have

00:23:50.650 --> 00:23:55.090
contact with you and your children.
The relapse happens in the mind long

00:23:55.110 --> 00:23:58.950
before somebody picks up the drug,
whatever that might be.

00:23:59.910 --> 00:24:03.990
And we talk about the idea of a dry
drunk, somebody not working a program

00:24:03.990 --> 00:24:11.710
of recovery, um, but still abstaining
from the addictive behavior,

00:24:11.710 --> 00:24:16.030
the substance, but not doing the
work that allows you to.

00:24:16.310 --> 00:24:18.470
You know, addiction is a
manifestation of a thing.

00:24:18.470 --> 00:24:20.870
It's not the thing.
The substance is not the thing.

00:24:23.750 --> 00:24:28.630
And you know it again all the
time that somebody is not

00:24:28.990 --> 00:24:33.630
actively engaged in the behavior.
And that switch hasn't gone off

00:24:33.630 --> 00:24:36.710
in the brain.
I always say, even if, even if

00:24:36.710 --> 00:24:39.390
they're not working a program,
and I'm saying they but I should

00:24:39.390 --> 00:24:41.790
speak for myself as a recovering
addict as well.

00:24:43.350 --> 00:24:47.270
There's all this,
you've still got to do this.

00:24:47.310 --> 00:24:51.150
And something in the game, you still
you've still there's still hope.

00:24:51.990 --> 00:24:58.240
Once the once the addictive
behavior that first hit the first.

00:24:58.240 --> 00:25:01.120
Whatever it is,
all bets are off then.

00:25:01.840 --> 00:25:07.800
So even though SJ knew this about
addiction, it still felt personal,

00:25:08.560 --> 00:25:13.240
like a punch to the gut.
I used to go into therapy and just

00:25:13.240 --> 00:25:18.320
say, but why? But why? But why?
How does he do what I was trying to

00:25:18.320 --> 00:25:23.640
get rather than looking at myself?
And I think this is where the growth

00:25:23.640 --> 00:25:28.320
factor then came for a long time,
rather than looking at myself

00:25:28.320 --> 00:25:32.480
and what compelled me to stay in
a situation in that way.

00:25:33.360 --> 00:25:38.280
By this point I was probably 13,
14, or 15 years sober myself.

00:25:38.880 --> 00:25:40.960
Most of my friends are
recovering addicts.

00:25:40.960 --> 00:25:44.640
I know the stuff,
but when it's that close to home,

00:25:44.640 --> 00:25:49.280
it's almost like you can't.
I was trying to make sense of it.

00:25:49.280 --> 00:25:54.920
I needed to make sense of it in a way
that wasn't just. But you know why?

00:25:55.020 --> 00:25:58.940
Because it's addiction.
There's nothing else outside of that.

00:25:59.220 --> 00:26:03.580
There's nothing. This isn't you.
He's not doing this because it's you.

00:26:03.820 --> 00:26:08.020
He's not doing it.
It's his own journey that he's on.

00:26:08.060 --> 00:26:11.140
You know this. But I couldn't.
I could intellectualize it,

00:26:11.140 --> 00:26:14.660
but I couldn't feel that because
it feels so personal.

00:26:14.740 --> 00:26:19.580
When somebody is in in addiction,
their behavior towards you.

00:26:20.060 --> 00:26:23.420
You're so incredulous that
somebody can feel that way and

00:26:23.420 --> 00:26:27.660
behave that way.
You feel as if it must be personal,

00:26:27.780 --> 00:26:31.820
and it isn't. You can't.
You can jump up and down.

00:26:31.820 --> 00:26:35.180
You can swear and shout at them.
You can be loving to them.

00:26:35.180 --> 00:26:38.500
If somebody's not ready to get
well from addiction.

00:26:38.780 --> 00:26:42.780
There's nothing you can do.
You know I am powerless over

00:26:42.780 --> 00:26:48.700
another person in their addiction.
And what it forced me to do was

00:26:49.860 --> 00:26:52.420
really start doing the work on
myself.

00:26:52.580 --> 00:26:57.160
It takes enormous courage to choose
the path that you fear the most.

00:26:57.480 --> 00:27:05.040
Trying to heal when you are
going through your own quake.

00:27:05.240 --> 00:27:11.360
Your own emotional emotional
upheaval. Emotional catastrophe.

00:27:11.720 --> 00:27:14.640
Trying to heal for the sake of
two little people who are

00:27:14.640 --> 00:27:17.840
looking to you for everything.
Is one of the hardest things.

00:27:17.840 --> 00:27:19.680
And I'm someone you know.
I've always been committed to my

00:27:19.680 --> 00:27:21.080
recovery.
I've always been committed to

00:27:21.080 --> 00:27:24.720
emotional growth. Always.
So I would I would say to my

00:27:24.720 --> 00:27:27.760
therapist every week,
my therapist is brilliant.

00:27:27.760 --> 00:27:33.400
Thank God for her. Um, I would.
Say I'm messing up my kids.

00:27:33.400 --> 00:27:38.960
And she would say, SJ,
you are committed to doing the work.

00:27:39.480 --> 00:27:42.160
You keep showing up,
you keep showing up.

00:27:42.160 --> 00:27:44.560
And at that time it fell on deaf
ears.

00:27:44.560 --> 00:27:47.280
I felt like she was just it was
lip service.

00:27:47.280 --> 00:27:51.960
And I'm paying you to say that.
I realize now that she wasn't.

00:27:52.320 --> 00:27:56.810
SJ made it through long, lonely
nights, many cold Cape Town winters.

00:27:56.970 --> 00:27:59.730
Many of the things that she
feared the most.

00:28:00.170 --> 00:28:04.410
And through it all, the fear of
abandonment. Love, addiction.

00:28:04.410 --> 00:28:10.890
Love that breaks. Love that heals.
SJ has learned to love herself

00:28:10.890 --> 00:28:13.330
through the journey.
First of all, you can't stop

00:28:13.330 --> 00:28:17.250
your kids feeling pain.
That's going to happen.

00:28:17.370 --> 00:28:20.610
Someone's going to break their heart.
Um, this is going to happen.

00:28:20.730 --> 00:28:24.290
And the people that are causing the
pain might even be you at some point.

00:28:24.490 --> 00:28:28.610
What you can do, though,
is continue to heal so that when

00:28:28.610 --> 00:28:32.050
they come to you and say,
this thing you did hurt me,

00:28:32.530 --> 00:28:35.370
rather than come from a point of
defensiveness and say, well,

00:28:35.810 --> 00:28:38.290
I can hold them in that and
engage with them in that which is

00:28:38.290 --> 00:28:43.530
a gift I was never given, ever.
The bond that I have with my kids

00:28:43.530 --> 00:28:47.450
now also is just extraordinary.
It allows me to keep doing the

00:28:47.450 --> 00:28:50.810
healing work, whatever is coming
up for me at any given moment.

00:28:51.690 --> 00:28:58.950
And that all feeds into being able to
just keep doing it a day at a time.

00:28:59.110 --> 00:29:02.190
My kids will be okay.
I think that's my biggest thing.

00:29:02.310 --> 00:29:05.950
Recovery is possible.
Recovery is entirely possible.

00:29:05.950 --> 00:29:08.870
And I know that because I
experience it for myself.

00:29:08.870 --> 00:29:12.110
And I know that because I
surround myself every day by

00:29:12.150 --> 00:29:15.630
hundreds and hundreds of people,
probably thousands in my lifetime,

00:29:15.630 --> 00:29:18.230
who a day at a time.
I live in clean and sober lives.

00:29:18.390 --> 00:29:22.350
It is possible.
I've seen people come from the

00:29:22.350 --> 00:29:30.150
streets.
To being happy, present fathers

00:29:31.070 --> 00:29:39.030
of their beautiful children.
The quake was the biggest gift

00:29:39.150 --> 00:29:44.950
that could have ever happened.
Today, S.J. lives with her two

00:29:44.950 --> 00:29:47.950
beautiful children in the
southern suburbs of Cape Town

00:29:48.230 --> 00:29:54.230
and has authored two books,
Killing Caroline and Mad Bad Love.

00:30:00.800 --> 00:30:03.880
Thank you so much for listening to
this season of Something Shifted.

00:30:04.000 --> 00:30:06.720
We make the show as a labor of love,
and because we believe stories

00:30:06.720 --> 00:30:09.440
about possibility is just what
the world needs to hear.

00:30:09.600 --> 00:30:12.760
We'd really love it if you would
share something shifted with

00:30:12.760 --> 00:30:15.640
others and be part of the shift
for someone else too.

00:30:15.760 --> 00:30:18.440
And if you really love the show,
go ahead and leave it a five star

00:30:18.440 --> 00:30:22.800
review and follow something shifted
on Apple Podcasts or on Spotify.

00:30:23.520 --> 00:30:27.240
Don't forget to use my code shift 50
at checkout when you place your first

00:30:27.240 --> 00:30:32.080
order on you, and you'll get 50% off.
All of the links to all of the

00:30:32.080 --> 00:30:34.400
things that I've mentioned are
in the show notes.

00:30:35.040 --> 00:30:38.640
A big thank you to my wife and
Executive Producer, Rwanda for

00:30:38.640 --> 00:30:42.400
additional writing, and of course,
to you for believing in possibility.

00:30:42.920 --> 00:30:45.680
We'll be back with more stories
later this year.

00:30:46.360 --> 00:30:50.800
My name is Shawn,
and this is something shifted by.