93 [S5] David
/Transcript
Full show notes: https://www.adopteeson.com/listen/93
Episode Transcription by Fayelle Ewuakye. Find her on Twitter at @FayelleEwuakye
This show is listener supported.
(intro music)
Haley - You’re listening to Adoptees On, the podcast where adoptees discuss the adoption experience. This is episode 93, David. I’m your host Haley Radke. David and I discuss his experiences of alcohol addiction and sobriety, how our lives as adoptees are so much more than just our adoption story, and what is working right now in the recovery field. David himself is an independent addiction consultant and clinical substance abuse counselor. So he definitely knows what’s going on. And as a side note, I almost lost my voice when we were recording this episode. And I was coughing away, which you’ll never hear because my editor is awesome. So David was really kind and just kept the interview going without much taxing on my voice. So just think of him as very kind to a very, very sick podcaster. And we wrap up with some great recommended resources for you. And as always, links to everything we’re going to be talking about are on the website adopteeson.com. Let’s listen in.
(upbeat music)
Haley - I’m so pleased to welcome to Adoptees On, David Bohl, welcome David!
David - Thank you Haley, glad to be here, thanks for making the time for me!
Haley – I want to tell you a little story before we get started. You are the very first person I ever met in person that came up to me and said, I listen to your podcast!
David - Oh really? Wow, I hadn’t realized that.
Haley - Yep. So I will never forget when we met. We met at the Indiana Adoptee Network Conference about a year and a half ago and that was just a really great event. And so I remember talking to you then and saying, oh you should come on my show! And you were like, no, no, I gotta finish my book first. And so here we are, here you are and you have your memoir all finished which we’ll talk about a little later on. But I’d love it if you would share your story with us.
David - Sure. Absolutely. If I can, I’ll just introduce myself real briefly.
Haley - Sure.
David - You hinted at it, but my name is David Bohl, middle initial B is Brian. I am a relinquishee and I am an adoptee. And I make that differentiation very specifically, because they’re two very different events. But that’s important for the purpose of our call today. But more than that, I am a husband of 34 years and I’m a father of two wonderful adult children. I live in the Midwest of the United States. And for a living I am an independent addiction consultant and a licensed clinical substance abuse counselor. And finally, part of that identity is that I’m a person in long term recovery from alcoholism. And saying that, I'm gonna try to combine in our discussion today, as many of those aspects as I possibly can because I think that’s most helpful to me when I listen to people on your podcast. When people are telling that integrated assimilated narrative, it’s so profound to me. So I’ll do my best to do that. But thanks for having me. I want to start out by maybe describing my traditional relinquishment or adoption story. and then maybe add to that later on just to share some learning that I've had since that time. So real simply, I was adopted as an infant. I was told from the very beginning, my earliest recollection, that I was adopted. It was never a mystery although I can say that I had no idea what it meant at the time. But that was the case. My adoptive parents were very open with telling me that I was adopted. Though they didn't really talk about much beyond that. They did share with me that my birth parents were a football player at the University of Wisconsin and my mother was a red headed cheerleader at that school. But beyond that, how they would know that without knowing more information was always a mystery to me, but that’s what the narrative was, but that’s all I knew about where I came from. But I grew up in a very supportive environment. My parents were upwardly mobile, and they wanted me of course. And I never wanted for any of the daily needs. I was fed, I was clothed, I had shelter, I was safe. So it was a great environment. And my friends knew I was adopted. It was part of the everyday conversation. My family talked about it, they didn't hide it. I mentioned it on occasion when I felt that I could trust some people. And sometimes they'd ask more questions. Sometimes they'd say, well gosh that’s interesting, do you wanna find out more about your birth family? And of course, I shut down that discussion. My thoughts at the time were wait a minute, I've got this wonderful adoptive family who’s taking care of me, I don't wanna jinx any of that. We’re not gonna do that. I just, I have no need to talk about those “people who gave me away”. That was my approach. Was very defensive about it and of course, I didn't allow myself to consider beyond that. Because the mind confounds things, the mind makes up stories. As a child I remember thinking something’s wrong with me. Something had to be wrong with me to be given away. So that was the case. And over the years I grew into a good relationship with my family and I thought I had a good childhood. Except that, it came with some struggle that I can describe a little bit to you. As a child I was timid anxious and my mother corroborates this. If someone were to ring the door I would hide behind her. Who knows that just might be my introverted personality. But it might have to do with my experiences as well. But I built a certain level of trust with this family. And grew into my teen years and by that time, I found alcohol. I was 13 years old when I found alcohol. It became a frequent routine. It didn’t seem like a big deal at the time. I grew up with a group of friends and a culture where those things didn't seem out of the ordinary. They were taboo, you shouldn’t be doing them at age 13 of course not, but so many people were doing it, it didn't seem like anything that was too scary or risky or anything else. But this culture permeated the community in which I lived and many of the communities in which us adoptees grow up. And of course the cool kids were doing these things. And I wanted to hang out with those cool kids. And I did. We went to parties, we had a life that was certainly entrenched in alcohol use throughout or school years but we made it through and I got through high school. I got to college and I really struggled. I struggled leaving my home environment I struggled leaving my core group of friends. I struggled meeting new people and I struggled with everything. I questioned everything and at first, I don't know why but at first I chose to go to a Jesuit University. And I had had no religious upbringing or training and I rationalized that, these Jesuit instructors, these professors and my counselors, they just don't understand me. Our philosophies are too different and Ieft that college. I was just so uncomfortable I had to get out of there. And I went to another college where I thrived for the most part and got through it. And I describe got through it, that’s been most of my experiences in life. There's some great times but mostly as I look back, I got through those times and shortly after college I got married. And I started building a life with my wife. And of course we’re very pragmatic although we were dreamers at the time and we decided we were gonna wait 5 years before trying to have children so that we could better get to know one another. And of course 15 months after that, my daughter was born. Great planning, my son was born 2 years after that. We were delighted. Not a lot of thought was given to what does this look like compared to my experiences, we just were together as a couple. We wanted to raise a family and they were welcomed. And of course I must say I never really thought about adopting at that time. My perception, my very narrow perception of adoption at that time was, adoption is for people who can’t have kids, right? That’s the way my thinking went. So it wasn’t even a consideration. At the time though, my wife suggested, you know David, it might really be a good idea for you to attempt to find some genetic family medical history. That’s okay that you’re not really crazy about knowing all the details but you know, we have children now and I think we owe that to them. And you know, sometimes we hate it when our spouses are right. And she was right but darn it, I wasn’t going to do anything about it at that time because I wasn’t ready to. And by the way I rationalized, I was healthy. What’s there to talk about? As I’ve gone throughout my whole life, I've heard what many adoptee adults have done, I took that box of information, I put it on the shelf, and I just didn't wanna deal with it for a while. I couldn’t. I was emotionally overloaded by it and I couldn’t do it. And that’s the way things stayed generally for the first 20 years of my marriage. What didn't stay the same, however, was my drinking and that not only did that continue, but it increased year over year. And the consequences increased. It strained my relationship, but I never thought I was at the point where it was a problem that I couldn’t handle. But later on and as you know through my introduction, that probably wasn’t the case. But then something happened. In the year 2004, I had a second grand mal seizure in my sleep. And it was terrifying. By the time I remember coming to, my wife was there, the room was filled with paramedics, I didn't know my name, I didn't know the date, I didn't know where I was. My blood pressure was 40 over 10, it was terrifying and it terrified my wife and they put me through a battery of tests. Not only because it’s severe, but this was my second one. Which means that the origins could be very serious. But they never determined the origins of where those seizures were from. And I went to a neurologist who I really liked and I didn't always trust doctors for any number of reasons, but this neurologist was very, made an impression upon me. And he asked about my family medical history. He’s trying to get to the deep down causes of these seizures. And I said, you know, I don't have any family medical history. And you know how it goes, in the past, I’ve told doctors that and it’s a conversation ender. You know you say that and it's like they ignore they asked the question, they pretend it doesn’t happen, there’s no follow-up, there’s no, how do you feel about that, is there something we could do about it? That’s what I expected from this doctor. But his answer was different. He said, you know, I understand how that might be tough for you to deal with. But this is really important. This is important for your health and ultimately it’s important for your children’s health. So I would suggest that you do whatever’s necessary to get that genetic history. And of course my wife supported him.
Haley – Wow.
David - Not for me but for the children. And I had to reconsider my position at that time. Because my position was a rationalization, right? I was saying I didn't wanna know those people, but I also didn't wanna harm the family or feel ungrateful to the people who raised me. I didn't know how to balance all of that. I was an adoptee, I was great at adapting, right? What do I have to do to get along around here? I don't wanna upset the apple cart. Now I have to go into some areas that are not only unknown, but potentially might also bring out some emotions in some other people. So I live in a state where we have closed birth records. And the process is, one can petition the state through a form, through the Department of Child and Family Services to obtain some non-identifying information. And yes, I was a product of a closed adoption so I had to do that. And yeah, I obtained that file, and of course it was heavily redacted. As a matter of fact I remember half the pages looked like they were blacked out and of course that was emotionally frustrating. I felt like I was being manipulated. Why can't I have the information about me? But at the same time, there was a lot of trepidation. I’m now getting some information about a part of my life that I knew nothing about. And of course it described some medical history, it talked about my grandmother’s heart disease and my grandfather’s Alzheimer’s. But nothing that would point to any family history of seizures. So okay, that’s that. So what do I do about this. Do I work harder, do I press, what do I need to do? And as I was contemplating this of course I'm thinking about this very slowly. A couple months later I received a second letter from the state of Wisconsin and they informed that my birth mother had died of alcoholism in 1996, 8 years before we were corresponding at this time. And this is really strange and really scary for me. Number 1, there’s no death certificate that says someone died of alcoholism. Someone dies of cardiac arrest, they die of liver failure, they die of a horrible accident, but they don't die of “alcoholism” so that was really curious to me. And secondly, you know, I hadn’t even considered the possibility that my birth mother had passed. I’m thinking about reunion and all the things I read about it. And it never occurred to me that she had gone beyond.
Haley - Of course.
David - Yeah, it was heavy. It was heavy. Another experience to get through as an adoptee. So looking back on it I know that it was part of the process, but at the time I had no idea what to do. So I shared what I could with my wife and kids and it was better than nothing, certainly, kinda ruled out anything fatal in terms of diagnosing seizures. But it didn't really allow me to understand where those seizures were coming from. So we were cautious, I was given medication, lots of checkups and knock on wood nothing has happened since then. But again like so many times us adoptees do, I took those thoughts as best I could and a compartmentalized them. I put them on a shelf. Even that part about that little knowledge about alcoholism, I didn't really wanna get into that because I was drinking pretty heavily at that time. But it got to a point where I just couldn’t ignore those emotions anymore. Couldn’t allow the, I guess, the, what I would call the discord between what I knew what I felt and what I didn't know or what was trying to come out. So it became really clear. I had to do this work and to do this work, I wasn’t gonna be able to do it in a way I was drinking. So I had to stop drinking and clear my head and I did. I went and got some help and I was able to stop drinking and that allowed me to get serious about that work that I needed to do. To build that motivation and to get the clarity about what’s going on. And of course like many adoptees, I’m not really good at moderation. I do something full on or I don't do it at all. And that’s been my adoptee experience of course. I jumped right in and what I did is I hired an attorney to petition the state courts and the state of Wisconsin for my full adoption records. And this was unheard of but I was encouraged. I met an adoption attorney who said you know, because your mother has passed, that judge might just think okay, we don't have to protect her anonymity like we have had to before. And maybe grant you those records although it was described as a long shot because very few people actually get those records from the state. And it took many months, but the attorney went before the judge, I had to write letters, describe my situation, all kinds of things, but the judge heard how important this information could be and she granted me that access to my full birth records including my original birth certificate. And that was a big deal. And as I’m doing this I’m learning in adoptee circles just how important that is and how it’s sometimes difficult or impossible it is in some jurisdictions to get that information and here I’ve been able to do that simply by spending a few hundred dollars on an attorney. And of course using some emotional tools along the way. But here this file comes in the mail in this big, thick, fat envelope and I had no idea what to expect. What’s an adoption file, what does that look like other than my original birth certificate? But I opened it up and I devoured that information and of course it contained my family history and it listed a rudimentary family tree and described ages and relationships. But it also talked about my mother a lot. And I never expected that. It contained clinical notes from the doctors and the social workers from the home for unwed mothers, where my mother spent 5 months before she gave birth. So I was, and here I am reading notes, clinical social workers writing about my mother and I felt, oh my gosh, now I’m really behind the wall. My mother hasn’t seen these, no one outside of this clinical realm has seen these. Am I, should I, are these secret? Should I be reading this? I mean it was phenomenal and it really, took me to really weird place. And of course it listed her name and it listed her mother’s and father’s name and that to me was unbelievable. I mean it was cathartic. It was like, okay, I have this identity. I’m starting to understand that I do have a history before I was relinquished and I have a history after, since before being adopted and that’s cool. And of course all of these records are very official hospital records. They’re all on what were typewritten forms as they didn't have word processors in1960. But there was one exception. I looked at one of the social worker’s notes and there was a name scribbled in the margin in ink on one of those forms. And that name turned out to be my biological father. And that of all things, blew me away even more because his name was not on my birth certificate, only my mother’s name was. All the files related to the fact that “paternity was not established” that is, there was no legal link to me and my father. My mother may have divulged that apparently to the social worker who wrote that name down. And I’m thinking, I’m in the business, I’m thinking boy, that was either a horrible mistake or an interesting way of the social worker giving me some clues to my identity. But who knows right? I don't wanna assign motivation to these people. But it was cathartic. And wow, I mean this opened up an entirely new perspective for me. And I never even thought about my father, I was told I couldn’t. It was all about my mother and it was with that information, that the real journey began. That was just the start. That was me allowing myself to venture into some really scary, fearful territory. But now, here’s some information about the people who had conceived me, their families, and maybe even, if anything, what remained of all that today. And it’s really interesting because I learned a lot of stuff and I learned a lot of stuff not only from notes from the social worker, but what that actually led me to was to two half siblings. I actually have met and communicated with a sister from my mother’s side of the family and I have communicated with a half brother from my birth father’s side of the family. And all of this including some information was from some other relatives and I’ve been able to put together a brief narrative about my parents and my birth parents and it’s really interesting because it gave me a new sense of empathy that I never even had before. I talked about the way my father grew up in the tiny town he grew up in and how he was a popular kid and a three sport athlete and he had to go to the reserve officer training to be able to afford college because they were economically disadvantaged at the time. And how he went to the University of Wisconsin as it turns out in 1956, he played football, basketball, and lived in a fraternity and worked and when he met mother, right? There was a narrative of how the relationship started that produced me and he met my mother Karen in his senior year. And my father’s name as it turned was Dick. So then I learned about Karen. Karen grew up in Chicago and her father was an executive for a firm in Chicago and they moved all the time and she spoke to the social worker on many occasions about wondering if it was even worth the bother trying to build relationships anymore because they moved around all the time. And how lonely and isolated she was growing up and even more so now that she was forced to, “forced” to relinquish this child. And so she talked about having a nervous breakdown. And getting together with my father, her sophomore year of college and guess what, this is no secret to the readers, but you know, they got together, Karen became pregnant, Karen went to Dick my father, and said, hey I’m pregnant, we need to do something about this. Dick said, boy, I don't think I’m the father, what do you mean we need to do something about this. Karen said, you know, as a female I can tell you I know that you're the father in the way only a female can know. But he disagreed and there were stints of notes on this about the discussion going back and forth. Besides, he was quite sure that upon graduation, which was going to happen before I was born, that he was going to be drafted into the Vietnam War. He said, he reasoned, what kind of a father am I gonna be? Being in a war, what kind of a husband am I gonna be and by the way I don't know if I’m gonna make it back. So as they did in that age, 1960, that was the heart of the Baby Scoop era, the families decided to put me up for adoption. And this is really interesting because that meant that my mother like so many young mothers at the time, as Ann Fessler mentioned in her book, The Girls Who Went Away, this was the story of my mother’s life. She was shipped off to a place an hour away from her home, she stayed there for the last 5 months of her pregnancy, only her father visited her on Sundays. I don't know why her mother didn't come and see her. But while she was there, her mother unexpectedly died of a heart attack so she had to go home for that funeral, but there are no notes about did they conceal the pregnancy, what was that like, it just must have been a horrible time for my birth mother. But she stayed in this home and she worked in their laundry and she worked in the area residence hall and earned her keep. And then gave birth to me on August 12th, 1960. And she of course immediately signed those relinquish papers irrevocably terminating her parental rights and returned a few days later after going through some horrific hemorrhaging that I read the doctor’s notes about. Well her father was living at home, he was a widower but he was spending time with her mother’s best friend and it was a really awkward situation for her to go home to. But that’s where the notes ended. After that, what I do know is that, from talking with relatives, Dick was drafted, my father was drafted into the Air Force that summer and sent to Vietnam to supervise building of Air Force landing strips and he and my mother never spoke again. And that’s really interesting because years later I learned that my father actually had preceded my mother in death. My mother died of alcoholism in 1996, my birth father died of a brain tumor in 1983. And again, right, as an adoptee, oh my gosh, we never consider things like this. We don't talk about this, they're not in the realm of possibility. We think we’re gonna maybe reunite with these people as they are today. We have no idea that they have left, so we second guess everything. What was I doing that today in 1993, should I have known and all the rest of that stuff. But anyway, that’s my traditional adoptee story and of course, having said all that, I’ve had to do a lot of work since learning all of that stuff. Because we all do, right?
Haley - Just a bit.
David - Right, just a little information that we adoptees get when we open that can.
Haley - Wow.
David - And a lot has happened since then and what I did learn most of all was that I couldn’t isolate being relinquished and adopted as just one thing, it wasn’t a stand alone thing. It was a part of my identity. It was part of my narrative and I had to integrate that into my life and understand it as best I could. So I talk about, in other circles or in a more evolved way I guess I would say, my version 2.0 of my adoption experience which is inclusive of some new perspectives, including becoming more self-knowledgeable and self-aware and of course that meant that again, as I said, I wasn’t just adopted, I was relinquished at birth and I was adopted 7 days later by my adoptive family. And I don't really know where I spent those 7 days. But I likely stayed in that hospital for unwed mothers. And I was delivered to my adoptive home by a social worker and there I stayed. I’ve learned that anxiety or being anxious was my disposition and actually it shows in personally test that I take. If I really push the issue, would I maybe some attention deficit, I don't know, but that was just part of who I am from the very beginning. And it certainly see how that might play out later in life. But I started to assimilate into that family and I started to develop the ability to socialize and trust a little bit. Because obviously my basic needs were being met and that changed in a deeply profound way at age 6 and I remember this very clearly because not only is it an experience that changed my perspective on anything, it’s my first clear memory of my childhood and I remember hanging out with a couple of buddies. It was after school, they were talking about their family and their brothers and sisters and one of them was from a really large family and I of course casually mentioned to them, hey I was adopted. And I remember it was a conversation stopper just like I had described with the doctor back in the days. They stopped talking, they stopped moving and they're looking at me and of course I expected a reaction, right? Surely they were going to think was cool. Surely they were gonna think this was novel, surely they were gonna think that I was this gift. The way my parents had told me over the years that I was gonna be. But it wasn’t. As a matter of fact, by the look on their faces, I could see it was so uncool, I instantly wished with those 6 year olds that I had never said it. And they instantly called me a liar. You’re lying, there’s no way, why would you say that. And of course, what we do, what I do, is I go into that defensive survival mode and I push away. And I needed help, I needed help desperately. I said, you gotta come home to my mom, she can straighten all of this out, she’s gonna tell you. And I needed my mom to affirm me. and I took the kids home and my mom calmly and confidently told them yes I was adopted. We loved him and he’s our, part of our real family, and that’s the way it is, you guys have any questions and of course they didn't. But I looked at them and I saw in their faces, nothing but confusement and judgement. I mean, I can still picture those faces today and I’m 58 years old. And right then and there, that adoption wasn’t this cool or amazing thing or this good thing that my parents had told me that it was. I learned from my perspective right then and there that adoption was bad and that I was bad. This is something I should have kept in the closet. I shouldn’t have talked about. And it was horrific and I came upon this poem by A. A. Milne. A. A. Milne is a guy who wrote Winnie the Pooh and the series, and I also read a bunch of children’s verses and it’s this poem that talks about being 6 years old. It talks about, “when I was 1 I had just begun, and when I was 2 I was nearly new, and when I was 3 I was hardly me, when I was 4, I was not much more, and when I was 5 I was just alive, but now I’m 6 and I’m clever as ever. So now I think I’ll be 6 forever and ever.” And to me that’s the way I thought I was. I thought I was letting these guys in on something that was so magnificent, I was clever, I was gonna be this unique guy that they liked and you know what? It wasn’t that. My life was never the same before that. I felt like I was naïve before then, thinking that adoption was this great thing and that I was special and that I was chosen. And they taught me that adoption was something to be ashamed of and that was the thing that I had to deal with as I was going through and getting all this information. And of course I felt betrayed. I felt betrayed by my parents and of course I jumped to the conclusion that my parents must have lied to me because something’s wrong with me right? They're trying to save my feelings here because something really bad about me made my biological parents give up on me. And of course I immediately felt disconnected and I mean that relationally disconnected from others, from life, from myself and for a long time, for my life going forward, if you’ll bear with me, this just figures into that. The addiction component and the other component because it defines the perspective about my life. And I had to continue to grow that narrative I had to try to figure out what did that mean, how did that play out in my life, how did those perceptions at the time involve my decision making or it is. Oprah often says about trauma or advanced or adverse childhood experiences is, what happened to me, right? Not what’s wrong with me, but what experiences did I have and what did they have to look like. Looking back on it, Haley, and I hope I’m not dominating the conversation. What I know is this. I know that growing up I always felt like I was different and I didn't belong and that I lacked the very instructions to live life. And I know a lot of adoptees have this in common with me. I also struggled with my identity and I didn't know who I was, ‘cause I just didn't have the biological markers to draw from. And I truly believed that I suffered from what has been characterized as an identity crisis. And that term identity crisis was coined by a German psychologist by the name of Erik Erikson, who by the way, was adopted as well, where I fail to achieve this healthy ego strength or a self-identity during my adolescence. What ultimately happened is I struggled with a lot of relational issues like attachment and I had no idea who to trust or how to trust and that was including myself. And of course I agonized. Just like many adoptees do. I struggled. I always felt alone and isolated and misunderstood. And the problem of course as a youth is, that later developed in the same thing into adult years, I didn't have the vocabulary to describe these things, let alone trust anyone enough to talk with them about this. I shared my memoir with my adoptive mother. As soon as it was published she read it and she came to me and she said, you know, I wish you would have just told me this was going on. There was so much that could have been done. And I said mom, this is not on you, I couldn’t describe this to you if I had to at the time. It’s taken me 50 some years to figure out this narrative. And how to work through it. And of course, it was all about shame. It was what I call that trifecta of self-conscious emotions that come out in terms of abandonment and betrayal and shame. And of course as this all going on, I’m aging and I’m dealing with this and I’m trying to go through the psychosocial development stages that Erikson talks about. And then something amazing happened. Something life changing happened to me where I saw things immediately differently. And unfortunately what that was was that, I stumbled upon alcohol. And I stumbled upon it as a solution and I differentiate that. You know many young folks say that they, when they tried alcohol, they tried drugs when they were younger, it helped them with that social discomfort that they had. It helped them to socialize a little bit and that may have been partially true for me. But it was immensely more than that. I felt that with that first drink of alcohol that I had, that I had found a connection. That I had connected with people. That those people that I was drinking with and spending time with had found a deeper level of connection than anyone else on the earth could have found. And that’s what alcohol gave me, which is a really interesting perspective at the time. But it was like a medication for what ailed me at the time even though I couldn’t define what ailed me. That’s to say that people who experience addictions stop in that psychosocial, that personal development, the moment that they begin to use alcohol and drugs in addictive ways. And when I say they, that’s what the researchers say. We stop developing because we found a very unhealthy coping mechanism from which to rely upon and then when I look back on that time, Haley, when I was 13 years old, I can now say, almost without a doubt, that I was immediately drinking alcoholically because alcohol altered my perceptions. It changed my reality, it changed the connectedness I felt.
Haley – Well I haven’t heard that before, that if you start in that addictive behavior, it can stunt your growth. Like, I didn't know that. Like, your emotional growth.
David - Absolutely. Absolutely. So without getting into the research too deeply, we go through several phases as we get socialized and develop as individuals and sometimes we have to have challenges and we have to overcome challenges. We have to find resources for those challenges. But what happens is, if I find alcohol and every time I have a problem or every time I’m emotionally overwhelmed I turn to alcohol, I don't learn those healthy coping mechanisms to get through life so I’m stuck in that time before all of these things started to happen and throughout the time that I’m using chemicals or alcohol in a very unhealthy way.
Haley - Oh.
David - And it makes sense actually, right?
Haley - Yeah.
David - I think it makes sense for a lot of people. And that’s what happened for me. Of course what happened like it happens with many other people is that, it stopped becoming a medicine. It was no longer that magic elixir that it was when I was 13 years old, it was progressive. And it caused health problems for me and it caused more emotional problems for me and actually turned into a poison for me. I became a full blown alcoholic. I had alcohol use disorder, there’s no doubt. So no longer is it a solution to my problems, it is now one of my bigger problems and I can't do any of the work on my adoption because I’m now fighting this emotional psychological nightmare that became this alcohol addiction. And it didn't happen overnight of course, it took many many years, but it did. So back to the other story. I knew I had to get sober, I knew I had to stop drinking if I was ever able going to delve into this emotional journey that I had to take that related to my relinquishment and adoptions. And to do that, I did. As I said before, I got clean and sober, I had to go to treatment to do that and I had to do a ton of work just to do it, but it was exactly what I needed to do to continue this process.
Haley – And then what brought you to your career now as an independent addiction consultant and abuse counselor?
David - Yeah, clinical substance abuse counselor.
Haley - Thank you.
David - Well I, you’re welcome. Well initially what I did, I was doing this work, I actually trained as a life coach and I had a private practice life coaching business. And it helped me to not only do my own work and it reminded me to do my own work because I totally believe that as someone who’s in the helping profession, if one hasn’t done their own work, they don't have any business working with others. It led me to some things, and ultimately to make a long story really short, I ran into a gentleman who turned out to be a mentor. And he invited me to speak about my experiences in front of a group of people that he was treating. And ultimately after I chatted with him, he said, you know, David if you don't do this for a living, you’re missing your true calling. And it was, within a 2 months I was enrolled in graduate school, I was starting to earn my master’s degree in addiction counseling and I started a profession in that world. But it meant that I had to keep doing my own work and of course that work means always questioning your perceptions because they developed in a time when we were under acute chronic stress of that adoption trauma. And again like you asked a moment ago, I had to pick up on that process of personal development including learning those healthy coping mechanisms for all the challenges that come in life and all the new challenges that sometimes do that. And ultimately it’s about better understanding ourselves and how do I more completely answer that question, who am I, right? And that’s one of those lifelong gifts of adoption isn’t it?
Haley - Right.
David - It’s giving, right? We have to constantly work on ourselves and be diligent about, what do I know about myself today, what is true, what is reality here? And what may be derailing me in turns of my own perceptions or my own way of looking at life? And I know I have to do this. As a professional but also as an adoptee, to stay healthy and I mean physically, psychologically, intellectually, emotionally, and spiritually healthy. I have to do this work, diligently. So I did that. I did that and part of that is not just figuring out the facts, figuring out the facts of my family tree. And a lot of people talk about closure and any number of things in grieving. And adoption practice and then they talk about closure. And I gave up on that term a long time ago. Because as an adoptee, I have realized that I have, I won't say that I’ll never get closure, but seeking closure is not a healthy place for me to be. What I need to be looking for is context, Haley. I need to understand the situation that occurred to make me think and perceive things a certain way so that I could deconstruct them and see what reality is really all about. And to that, it’s not just about finding out about my birth family and socializing with half brothers and a half aunt all those things, it’s about looking at other dynamics that are in play, right? hat other dynamics are in play in the adoption world that are playing out here and what other dynamics should I know about addiction that are going on here, right? I mean if I look at, when I finally started to do the research and all the work I should have been doing for decades, I learn the things that you know and that some of your listeners know, but many of the people you’ve had on your show as experts now and that’s simply adult adoptees have a higher degree of mental health issues. And both adults and adolescents who are adopted are more likely to get counseling. And adopted persons have a much increased risk of having a substance use disorder or some other type of addiction. But not only do they have problems with drug and alcohol use, they might have higher rates of eating disorders or attention deficit disorder or suicide attempts and completions and the one that really blew my mind when I read about this was, adoptees ultimately have higher risks of untimely pregnancies. Then I looked into the personality disorders and guess what, adoptees are more likely to have antisocial personality disorder and borderline personality disorder and all of this. So I had to look at that and however we wanna quantify this, I don't wanna over diagnose, I don't wanna scare anybody into saying that adoption caused all these mental health issues but ultimately even though on the outside, sometimes I look like anyone else, right? I look like a non-adopted person, I experience things that needed to be overcome just like many of your listeners and you have experienced. I experienced loss, I experienced grief, I had identity development issues, I lacked self-esteem, I didn't have any information about my medical background and that included mental health and addiction predispositions that might have existed in my bloodlines. Then I had to do that work and say okay, now I know a little bit about adoption. I’ve been working hard and I’ve been studying addiction. Is there a relationship between the two. And what I could tell you today unequivocally, there’s absolutely a relationship between the two. There’s a cause and effect, although the research is still out on that. I can't really say because again, these are really complex presentations. People’s lives are complex and adoption is complex and addiction is complex. But there’s some work in this and there’s this psychologist out there by the name of Paul Sunderland who talks about the intersection between adoption and addiction. And if anyone’s listening, if you just google Paul Sunderland, or you google adoption addiction, he’s the first thing to pop up. And his YouTube talk talks about all this and ultimately what he says is what I know to be true today and what I can certainly support the research is, that those who have been relinquished and those who have been adopted, who also have addiction should be looked at as having a co-occurring mental health disorder of trauma and addiction. Some type of PTSD, might be developmental PTSD and addiction. And that’s really important because that means we have to work all the harder to look at this and develop that coherent narrative that helps inform, I guess healthy behaviors going forward. So what we know is that this combination produces an immense amount of chronic stress for an individual. We know that 50- 66% or half to two thirds of the people who have trauma also have an addiction. That’s off the charts, right?
Haley - Wow.
David - People who have PTSD that one form of trauma, are 2 to 4 times more likely to battle addiction than people without PTSD. I mean these are important facts that I had no idea about. Right here I’m living my life and I just didn't have the info because I didn't allow myself to go into this territory. Now I’m into this territory ‘cause I have to be. I have to be to survive. Existentially, to be happy and safe and sound, I have to do this work now. And I’m glad that I did. It’s not like I felt like I wasn’t going to do the work, it just, you know, it can be overwhelming sometimes. What I found out ultimately is that adoption and alcoholism is really complex just like trauma and substance use disorders are and it means that there's a really complex and costly clinical course when dealing with either of those other two things alone. So what that means is that there is increased chronic physical health problems and we tend to socialize, we have higher rates of suicide, we have more legal problems, we have an increased risk of violence we have worst treatment adherence because we have both trauma and addiction. And they have less improvement in treatment than people who either have just addiction or have just the trauma. And of course better, what ultimately, I’m telling here that may be of interest to you and your listeners is that better rates of abstinence from any chemicals or behaviors and lower levels of mental health systems are obtained when you treat the trauma and the addiction concurrently, and in an integrated way. You have to take care of them at the same time. Like I said before, I can't compartmentalize addiction separately that I can from my adoption. You can't compartmentalize for example depression separately from an eating disorder. If that’s what one is dealing with. So it made perfect sense but I didn't allow myself to see that and now I know and now that means that I’ve identified a problem and I can do something about it. So of course, you know you’re smart and your listeners are smart so they're asking, wait a minute, are you saying David that trauma of being relinquished as a newborn caused your alcohol addiction, the alcoholism, and I‘m gonna say I don't know. The answer’s I don't know. The jury is still out. What we know is that alcoholism is a primary disorder. It has biological and psychological and environmental components to it. How they combine I don't know. But I can tell you that my mother died of alcoholism so I have the gene that might predispose me to alcohol at some point. I had some environmental situations where I had chronic stress all the time, I didn't feel safe, might that have contributed to it? Yes, but did it cause it? I don't know, I have to let time and researchers determine if that’s true or not. But what I do know is this. That you know also, because I've listened to many of your podcasts is that, not thinking about this, or not talking about relinquishment and adoption in a safe space, in a meaningful way, that is, not looking at these causes and conditions that have formed my perceptions as I grew up, continue to feed the shame that’s so inherent in me. And that’s ultimately what happens. From an addiction standpoint, it really complicates things, there’s a doctor in your wonderful country by the name of Dr. Gabor Maté. He has done an immense amount of work addicted individuals who have also had real trauma. They tend to be socioeconomically, greatly disadvantaged and often times homeless on the eastside of Vancouver, Canada and he basically in his book, The Realm of Hungry Ghosts said, I’m gonna paraphrase because I don't have the exact quote is that, addiction is really complex and it’s a complex interaction between human beings and their environment and their perceptions. And we can’t just look at it from one perspective. We need the other things in mind and that’s exactly what I’m describing is the process here. Addiction is biological and chemical and psychological and medical and neurological and emotional and it is social and sometimes it can be political and economic and it certainly has spiritual underpinnings and that’s what Dr. Maté basically talks about. He says, to get anywhere, to get a complete picture of this, we have to shake that kaleidoscope and see what other patterns emerge. And I think we do that as adoptees, it’s not, doesn’t have to be just about addiction and adoption and that combination. It’s about all the aspects of our life and its cohesive narrative that we’re trying to develop, because our stories are very complex and it’s sometimes very difficult to get our arms around them. But for me, that combination of that intersection between relinquishment and adoption and addiction has to be part of the examination. So to say that I’m an alcoholic and nothing else matters, is incomplete, right? it compartmentalizes things. Or to say that I am this disease with these genetic predispositions, it may be true, but new science says that I have a chronic brain disease that produces these dopaminergic dysregulations that cause me to make bad, unhealthy decisions sometimes. Well that may be true but that’s incomplete unless I bring the rest of what’s going on in there. The adoption and the relinquishment. And the flip side, and to say that I had a trauma as a result of being relinquished caused all my ills in life, is only a partial way of looking at it. It may have caused some perceptions that I need to reexamine but it’s not that straightforward. And of course to say I have attachment and identity issues as a result of this chronic development and relational trauma, this chronic stress, that I talked about, it’s true. But I think it’s only a fraction of that kaleidoscope that Dr. Maté describes. So again we have to keep working towards this coherent narrative. All these things are accurate but I need to consider all of them together. And sometimes Haley, that is an immense amount of work. It’s exhausting. I can’t always do it alone, I need others who can be accountability partners to hold me, to keep me to that reality. But that’s what I continue to do, I’m so glad I’ve done it.
Haley - Thank you. My goodness. That is like, we could talk for hours about this, right? It’s so complex and I love how you just call us back to that realization that we’re more than just being adopted, like there’s so many different parts of our lives. And when we’re looking at healing in any aspect if it’s addiction, or other aspects like, there’s more than one thing to kinda look at. So thank you.
David - Well you’re welcome. Isn’t that interesting you know, for people who hang out in recovery fellowships, there’s a standard way of introducing yourself and you’ve seen it in the movies, right? I’m David and I’m an alcoholic. And I did that for many years when I went to those meetings. But it occurred to me that it is immensely reductionist, right? There’s so much more about me than just being an alcoholic. So I’ve actually changed my language and I say my name is David and I’m a person with alcoholism. And that really taught me a lot about adoption, right? Because I used to say I’m a relinquishee and I’m an adoptee and that may be true, but again, that is really limiting. That’s not only who I am, it’s only part of what I am. Part of who I am. So now I say, I’m David, and I was relinquished and I was adopted. It’s not who I am, it’s what hurt, it’s the experience.
Haley - Well, let me lighten this up before we do our recommended resources. So I recently did my very first ever standup comedy set.
David - Yay!
Haley - And my very first line is, I’m Haley Radke and I’m adopted. And it killed. Like, everybody laughed and I wrote that and I wasn’t like, writing it as a joke, it was just, this is how I’m introducing myself. And so later looking back on that I’m like, wow, okay.
David - That was incredibly insightful. As we talked about, there’s so many parallels between recovery from some type of substance abuse and some type of behavioral disorder and recovery from grief and relinquishment and trauma and all of that. The parallels are infinite and you were brilliant to do that. So good for you. I had no idea that you had done that.
Haley - I did, I did. And speaking of parallels, let’s go, let's do our recommended resources. And so your memoir is called Parallel Universes, the Story of Rebirth. And I had the immense privilege of reading it and I just wanna read just a little quote from it here. “There are so many more things to sobriety other than just putting alcohol away. It’s a total revolt. The whole process feels like coming out of a blackout. One that lasted years instead of one night.” And your story, you know, you share all parts of your life. And I remember reading it and thinking, some along the same things that you were just describing to us like, this is your life story and it’s not just about being adopted. You know, you talk so much about your children, and your wife, and your relationships with them and this other beautiful line I really liked. I can’t get it out of my head. You’re talking bout your daughter being born and it says, “Every time a baby is born, a universe is created.” And yeah, try and get that out of your head.
David - And it of course, I’m sorry to interrupt, it obviously means that we have a bigger responsibility to those who come after us, right? I feel an immense responsibility without putting pressure on them to my children to get this right, to build a foundational cohesive narrative that I can pass down to them so they can do the same thing, so they can be emotionally mature as well.
Haley - Absolutely. Yeah. So anyway, I really enjoyed your book and you have such good perspectives on all the different things that kind of led you to where you are now. And so I definitely recommend people pick up a copy. So yeah, again it's called Parallel Universes. And so you can hear more of David’s story. You know he shared what he could in the time we had together. But I would really recommend you pick this up.
David - Thank you.
Haley - Okay David, what did you wanna recommend to us.
David - First and foremost, I think there’s a great resource for any number of adoptees and relinquishees and there are also some resources for some people in that constellation and that’s the Adoption Search Resource Connection, ASRC. You can find them online and you know, their methods and their mission are really straightforward. They try to heal and build community and offer resources to those who have been impacted by what they call separation from ancestral connections. And I love that. We’re not pigeonholing anyone, we’re not calling anyone orphaned or fostered or adopted or all some of the language those who live this life trip over, right? talk about separation from ancestral connections and I think that’s brilliant and that informs all of the resources and what’s going on there. They have support groups and conferences and they list blogs and social media and podcasts and I noticed the other day that I saw your podcast there. So I know that they have some great things going on for adoptees there. So I would, that is a wonderful resource to anyone listening to your call here.
Haley - Yeah, there are so many links on their website for sure for all kinds of things. Yes.
David - Absolutely. Couple of books I would recommend as well and one your listeners may be very familiar with but my, I often hear about The Primal Wound and I have read that book many times. But for me, the way I described my narrative earlier, the most important book I’ve ever read was Coming Home to Self by Nancy Verrier. And it of course it talks about becoming aware and ultimately that’s the shortest version I could give to my story. It’s becoming self-aware and becoming aware of the world around us and it really talks about how false beliefs create that fear that I talked about and it perpetuates having those perceptions rule our everyday life in the moment and going forward. So it is a brilliant book. And the other book right along those lines but it isn’t written specifically to adoptees, but it is I think really important to adoptees. It’s called the Insight Cure. And it’s called Change Your Story, Transform Your Life and it’s written by Dr. John Sharp who’s an MD at Harvard Medical School. And he basically says everybody has a personal narrative that informs their life and makes decisions upon that. But what if part of your assumptions about your narrative were wrong. What if there's that one thing that’s keeping you from really seeing things the way they are and ultimately that hit me right between the eyes. The one thing that held me back for most of my life was that I thought something was wrong with me. It informed my narrative it informed my behavior, it informed my fears, my relationships and everything. And he shows a way that identified that one thing that holding us, that one perception that’s holding us back, and he gives a very wonderful 8 step process of working through that. Not an overnight process and sometimes it requires support but he was brilliant in the way he structured it in lay person’s terms without being a psychologist. A matter of fact I’m remembering in his forward he said, you don't need a psychologist to do this. There may be times when you do, but to do this work, from his book, you don't need to do it. So I would recommend that as a resource as well.
Haley - Oh, that sounds great. I of course, Coming Home to Self is one of my favorites. And I haven’t heard of Insight Cure so I will definitely check that out. Thank you.
David - That’s relatively new, yes.
Haley - Okay, so where can we connect with you online, David?
David - I guess the easiest way is to find me on the web, I’m at davidbbohl.com. David, middle initial B, B-O-H-L.com. and from there you can see about my book, you can link to my social media accounts, you can read the short versions of Who Am I and many of the things we talked about here today.
Haley - And you have a blog on there as well.
David - I do!
Haley - I was reading through some of your writings and they're really insightful. So definitely go check that out.
David - Thank you!
Haley - Thanks so much for our conversation today, it was wonderful to hear some more of your story.
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Haley - Like just behind the scenes, I think my voice sounds so squeaky and just, oh yikes. Anyway, I hope that you could look past that and just enjoy David’s story and really there’s so much wisdom in the things that he has shared. So I hope that you find this episode helpful. As always, I would love to connect with you via my newsletter, adopteeson.com/newsletter and it’s mostly monthly where I send out some essays about things I’m thinking about or working on or things about the show. So if you wanna be in the know, that is the place to be. Adopteeson.com/newsletter. And I want to send once again, a gigantic thank you to my Patreon supporters. I could not do this without your monthly support. As I mentioned at the beginning of the episode, I have an editor who works so hard to make these episodes sound fantastic and I wouldn't be able to have that without your support. And so if you find the podcast valuable, if you want to give me a end-of-year gift, I would love for you to sign up to be a monthly supporter and stand with the other adoptees who are supporting this show and adoptive parents and first parents. I have multiple people from every side of the constellation who are supporting the work of Adoptees On. That’s adopteeson.com/partner to find out more details of how you can stand with us as we produce this show for you every single week. Thanks so much for listening, let’s talk again next Friday.
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