You're listening to the Love Over Addiction Podcast.

Hey, how are you?

Last night, I had a nightmare.

And you know those dreams where you wake up and you feel like they're so real

and then it takes you an hour or two to kind of unwind and come back down to the reality

rather than the what you just strumped about your nightmare.

Typically that happens to me with nightmares.

Well, I had a dream last night about my ex-husband and I want to talk about it.

First and foremost, the fact that I have, you know, divorced him many, many, many years,

go over 10 years ago and I am still having nightmares about my relationship with him

helps me understand that what we are going through.

You and I are feeling and going through is trauma.

I mean, it's traumatic life changing instances and truly we can't downplay this.

We can't sit there and try to say, oh well, addiction is only happening to the one that I love.

Addiction is happening to you. Addiction is still happening to my subconscious.

Addiction is a powerful, awful, awful disease that really affects not only the ones we love

but those around them, particularly, particularly the people who love them.

So if you're minimizing what you're going through or you're trying to convince yourself

that it's really not that big of a deal or that you shouldn't be this upset or you're telling

yourself you're worrying too much or you're feeling wildly uncomfortable with your current life

and you're beating yourself up for loving this person who's constantly hurting you

and you're trying to convince yourself that you can manage with this.

...