Addictions, Family Secrets, and Finding Our Way Through

Addiction's grip extends far beyond the individual, creating ripple effects that reshape entire family systems. Whether hidden behind closed doors or normalized as "just what they do," these patterns leave lasting impressions on everyone involved.

In this deeply personal episode, Chrisy and Kerry explore their contrasting childhood experiences with family addiction. The conversation takes an unexpected turn when they address controversy around their podcast name. After being told that "Dysfunction Junkies" might offend people with substance use disorders, they consulted individuals in recovery who actually appreciated their approach. This opens a fascinating discussion about language, intention, and reclaiming terms to make sense of difficult experiences.

Their message resonates clearly: whether you're struggling personally or supporting someone who is, breaking the cycle of silence and normalization creates space for healing. Don't wait—reach out for help today.

Chapters

• 0:07 Welcome to Dysfunction Junkies
• 0:46 Tackling Addictions and Disorders
• 2:51 Gambling's Hidden Impact
• 8:53 Normalizing vs. Ignoring Problems
• 11:40 The "Junkie" Name Controversy
• 16:42 Eating Disorders and Childhood Exposure
• 24:13 Support Without Enabling
• 26:45 Introducing "Junkies Care" Initiative

Transcript

DJ Nick: 0:07

Welcome to the Dysfunction Junkies podcast.

DJ Nick: 0:10

We may not have seen it all, but we've seen enough. And now here are your hosts, Chrisy and Kerry

Kerry: 0:18

. Hello Junkies, hi Chrissy,

Chrisy: 0:24

hi Keri,

Kerry: 0:25

I feel like it's been forever since we've been together it seems that way doesn't it.

Chrisy: 0:31

I think we just love each other so much we want to be together all the time, all the time.

Kerry: 0:36

Oh my, oh my, oh my. Well, today's episode we've kind of dabbled a little bit of this here and there, but we're going to kind of talk about some. This is going to be a little bit of a heavy subject. Yeah, yeah, kind of good.

Chrisy: 0:52

I know Long pause, he ain't heavy, he's my brother.

Kerry: 0:57

We're going to talk about addictions and disorders and how that has affected each of us in our own ways growing up, and you know we understand that this is really something that affects a lot of people. Whether somebody's battling with an addiction or disorder on their own or you have a family member or a friend, it does have a ripple effect. So today's episode is not meant to all be disrespectful, but we're just talking about our experiences and hopefully, you know, find a light on how to move forward. So Absolutely. What's your thoughts, Chrisy?

Chrisy: 1:31

Well, I totally agree, addictions and disorders, if you're not struggling with them personally, I mean you still kind of are. If you know somebody who is struggling, it becomes personal for everybody, I think, involved.

Kerry: 1:43

Yes.

Chrisy: 1:44

It's hard to watch somebody deal with the issues of an addiction and I think that actually over the last not last few years, but many years I think there's been a lot more awareness. Yes, not just for the person struggling directly with the addiction or disorder, but the people who are their support system. Yes, so there's been more out there for support for the people who are their support system. Yes, so there's been more out there for support for the people who have to support.

Kerry: 2:10

Yes, 100%. And I personally, you know, obviously we all have people that we know or maybe we have, you know dealing with things ourselves. It's hard sometimes because you are trying to be helpful but you also have to protect your own space, you have to protect your own mental health, and you know it's a struggle. So when Chrisy, I started talking about this, we were thinking about our childhoods, as we often do, and trying to dive down the rabbit hole of where did this all start? And, chrisy, I both realized that it really for both of us it started in the beginning between her family normalizing and my family not talking about it. So I'll go first.

Kerry: 2:51

So in my family, gambling there is an addiction to gambling in my family and it was. It was my dad. I mean, I'll say it because I've talked about it before. You know, my dad's passed away and it was something that he struggled with his whole life, but it was something that my family didn't talk about and it wasn't until the later years that it was really come to the surface and it was talked about. So that was hard, because now in hindsight, I go back and look at things and everything makes sense and it's like, oh well, if we would have only talked about it, maybe we could have been more supportive of him, or maybe we could have been more helpful, or maybe things wouldn't have progressed to the level it did if it wasn't this hush hush under the rug thing. It was interesting so, but little things like.

Kerry: 3:40

I'll remember as a kid I think, when we talked about the I forget which episode it was. We talked about how I wanted that plush puppy, that from the, from the book thing, and what I ended up did is I ended up taking some money, and what's funny is part of the money that I took. When it came up missing, nobody thought to look at the kid Apparently. All the blame went to my dad. Came up missing, nobody thought to look at the kid Apparently, all the blame went to my dad, and you know. So it was like, oh, but it was okay, you know, and so, like I got away with something because he was the, he got blamed for it and he didn't do it. He got blamed for the money being missing, some of the money being missing, but it really just wasn't there.

Kerry: 4:25

Well, no, I took the. When it became up missing, my mom just assumed it was my dad. So you know. So, like just you wouldn't think that you know normally so, but now in hindsight you know it's like, oh well, you know, a little bit of me feels bad that my dad got blamed for what I did, but at the same time well, like if he wouldn't have been gambling. And then, just whenever we were going through the house and whenever we sold the house and everything, I remember we went, we were going through the attic and things and we would find coffee cans full of lottery tickets.

Kerry: 5:02

Just shoved full.

Chrisy: 5:06

I mean, what was the reasoning, you think, for keeping them?

Kerry: 5:10

Well, because if you spend so much, there's somehow you do it with your taxes. So if you have the receipts, you have the tickets. I guess if you spend so much, you can actually I don't know write that off or against your losses and your wins. I don't know for sure. Are you kidding, not kidding?

Chrisy: 5:28

but I did not know this yeah.

Kerry: 5:31

I think, if you win, somehow that helps you, but I don't Again, how much do you want to bet that?

Chrisy: 5:36

people who? I have a parent that enjoyed lottery and played a lot, and I'm not speaking of her because I have no idea, but I don't remember her saving anything like that. And I'm sure that hers maybe wasn't at the level of your father, I'm sure it wasn't. But I mean she enjoyed doing it, but people who probably suffer with that type of addiction and do spend a lot of money doing it yeah. I would think, because I think the illness causes them to think they're always going to end up on top.

Kerry: 6:08

Oh, yes, yes, so this is your yeah top.

Chrisy: 6:14

Oh, yes, yes, so this is your. Yeah, they probably wouldn't. I don't know how to say this. They wouldn't claim it Right, because they are probably thinking they made money Right. Because I think when they have that illness they think they're always on top, but they're not Right, so mentally they probably don't conceptualize that they probably were at a loss.

Kerry: 6:31

Yeah, again, I'm not a tax accountant person or anything, but there's somewhere in my little database of memory when we, when he did win big at one point, big enough that it had to be claimed. I think that's where this came into play, because he maybe didn't have to pay as much tax. I don't, I don't know, I'm not a tax person and who knows I could have been fed all this BS. I don't know I'm not a tax person and who knows I could have been fed all this BS. I don't know. But all I know is we found buckets, we found bags. I mean, I would I don't even know how much money if I would have added up each ticket, because it was a huge amount, but they'd be tucked, they were hidden because obviously he was trying to hide.

Kerry: 7:13

This was happening. So you know, we just came across all and it was so sad. It was just so like, oh my God, the magnitude of the situation, magnitude of, oh my gosh, if that's a dollar ticket, which they weren't, they were like five or ten dollar tickets, right, and you're shoved into a coffee can and shoved into a bag and shoved into a box, and we're talking boxes and boxes. Oh, so it made sense of, well, why partly money was tight growing up because any little bit money was trying to, you know, and that's part of that cycle. So, yeah, it was really, it was something to. It was a lot to digest. I'm sure it was a hard. Yeah, reality check, yes, yes.

Chrisy: 7:56

Absolutely. Can you imagine if those cans and bags were filled instead of lottery tickets? We were actually, for that was the money that was in those cans and those bags.

Kerry: 8:07

Yes, that would have been our life would have been different. My mom's life would have been different. That would have been. Our life would have been different, my mom's life would have been different. So looking at that is just really like. You know, again, that was a addiction that he had, but it had the ripple effect on the rest of the family and then the whole behavior. And then how do you help? Not enable that, but how do you help them? And you know, that's finally where certain healthy boundaries had to be. I had to make. It was like no, you know, I cannot continue to support you by if you are continuing to do this, and it's hard, it's really hard.

Chrisy: 8:42

So, yeah, oh no, definitely. Well, the one thing I wrote down while you were talking is the when we talk about the two ways we were brought up right. Yours was to not talk about right the problems and mine was to basically normalize it. Yeah this is what they do. So if I had that situation you know to that extent that I was dealing with personally they would have been like they like to do that, yeah that's what they do, I mean with my grandfather, with the drinking you talked about, that you know he drinks, even though he wasn't working anymore.

Kerry: 9:17

But it was just. That's what he does.

Chrisy: 9:19

Yeah, that's, he worked in the mill. He worked hard, he made sure he provided for his family. There was no you know reason to turn that into a demon. Right it just it is what it is. Yep, that's what grandpas do, yeah, who work in mills or anywhere else, I don't know. I only had the one that my other grandfather was a milkman. It was for Isley's, this part of the country.

Chrisy: 9:48

Isley's was a dairy here and a very loved dairy, and my grandfather my other grandfather was an Isley was a dairy here and a very loved dairy, and my grandfather, my other grandfather, was an Isley milkman and I don't remember if he had he was really sick pretty much from what I can remember growing up and he passed away when I was like eight years old and he was paralyzed on one side because I think he was a really bad diabetic.

Chrisy: 10:10

Oh man, I think he had a stroke, and so my relationship with him was very different. So I don't know if he struggled with anything. I don't remember really hearing anything, but yeah. So what I was going to say was, though, ignoring the problem, yeah, and normalizing the problem, to me, for both situations would basically equal no help. Right, correct, yes, there is no help because there's no reason to help anybody. It doesn't exist. Yep, it's not a problem, or?

Chrisy: 10:39

that's just normal, right? You don't get help for that, right? Why are you wasting people's time asking for help, right? It's normal Right. So I think it's a really bad thing on both ends.

Kerry: 10:48

It is on both ends it is. We need to be somewhere in the middle and that kind of leads to one of the things that where I was coming to as I got older was why do I need to tiptoe around your disorder, like, why can't we talk about this? Let's talk about this, let's try to, you know, address it, let's try to get to the root of it, let's try to find some help not only for the person but for the rest of those that are around. You know everybody is involved in this and that kind of led into another ripple effect later in life.

Kerry: 11:20

You know other family members, different problems, different, you know challenges that they've had, where I've actually had someone say to me that they have a problem with the name of our podcast because we say junkies, because they felt offended because we use that term and it was comparing because of people that have drug issues. And I was just so taken aback by that because I'm like junkies can mean so many different things and, by all means, chrisy and I did not mean to offend anybody by using that term, but so I kind of looked it up in the dictionary a little bit to see what a junkie is OK and one of the definitions and this is what we were going after was a person who gets an unusual amount of pleasure from, or has an unusual amount of interest in, something. And that's to me, our definition of dysfunction junkies, because we do have an unusual amount of interest in dysfunction, right, because we're so surrounded by it, and I think a lot of people do, whether they recognize it or not, right?

Kerry: 12:24

And so here, something so simple as the name of our podcast caused this big you know. You know, you, you are offending, you know, the people that have drug addictions. And I'm like, well, first of all, that's not what it meant. And then I was told, well, you know, you're a junkie too and I'm like, well, as far as a dysfunction junkie, yes, I've not had a drug problem, but yeah, that's kind of the name of the show because we have, we talk a lot about the dysfunctions of life. So, yeah, I'll admit that.

Kerry: 12:56

So what I did after that was I started talking to people that I know that have drug problems or, you know, battling drug addictions or different addictions, whatever. And I've asked them. I'm like, you know, some of them had listened to the show and some had not, but I would tell them about what the purpose of the show was, of them had listened to the show and some had not. But I would tell them about what the purpose of the show was. And so I just came out and asked, was like, are you offended by the name of our show? And but we is, and you know what, I've not had one person say they were.

Kerry: 13:20

I've had more people say, oh my gosh, no. And one of the people that I asked is a recovering addict who now works with addicts and everything. And this person was like no, you've made lemonade out of lemons, you know, like they were just so. It kind of made me feel better Because I'm like we did not. You know, we joke around a lot. We do make light of things, but it was never meant to offend anyone. But it goes back to my thought of again why can't I use this word, these words't I use these words? This is my experience.

Chrisy: 13:55

It would be very difficult to well, we're obviously not the only ones that caught on to this word. I'm not going to promote anything else unless? Anybody out there wants to partner up and promote each other. But just looking into when we were going to start this, we did. Yes, we definitely are not the only ones that latched on to that.

Kerry: 14:16

Right, yes, word Right, and they just put a different word in front of it yes. So whether it was, you know, comedy junkies or whatever you know, yes, there are a lot of people who I do believe also follow that definition.

Chrisy: 14:33

Yes, and that's what it means to them and what is near and dear to their heart or that they've had experience with. Yeah, so yeah, that's a tough one. It is tough, and again, we don't mean to offend. I guess when you told me that I was a little bit like really.

Chrisy: 14:49

I mean, you know, because it's just and we mean no disrespect with that word, Right? I mean, I think in the past I've heard people use it in a comical way and I never. If it was brought up that way, I never felt it was a diss to anybody struggling with addiction, Correct? I just thought it meant you really like that. Yes, so much.

Kerry: 15:10

Yes, or you're really affected by it, or you have a lot of this in your life, or you know whatever.

Chrisy: 15:15

I could have been called growing up because I was so into it an Elvis junkie.

Kerry: 15:20

Oh, yes, yeah, I would have said movie, but yes, well, I am still that you know or?

Chrisy: 15:28

a music junkie, or I love the Beatles, so I'm a Beatles junkie, or I love the Beatles, so I'm a Beatles junkie. I think it just means you really.

Kerry: 15:34

I mean, there's other things that it can be connected to it, doesn't?

Chrisy: 15:37

have to be negative.

Kerry: 15:38

No no.

Chrisy: 15:39

And I think it was almost sort of like when you're really trying to explain somebody who has an addiction, disease of some sort like that, which is horrible to struggle with. Yes, I almost feel like, if you use this word that we're using for sort of fun, yes, I think it's almost an insult for somebody who's truly struggling, yeah, to use that. Yes, I, just for me. I think it's more fun to use the word here yes, where we're having a good time, yeah, and just talking about being able to try and deal with these odd things, yes, and move on. You know it's talking more about us. We are not pointing the finger, we're looking at it. We are the people.

Kerry: 16:18

We are the junkies we are. We are because we recognize dysfunction and we see it all around us and we grew up with it and everything. So, yeah, this is kind of interesting and then you know, now also kind of dealing with some different things. So okay, so what other disorders?

Chrisy: 16:40

you know like what affected you growing up. I talked about my dad's feelings.

Kerry: 16:43

Well, I mean the drinking with my grandfather.

Chrisy: 16:44

But you know what? I don't want to sit here and say it like defined me or even really affected me that much, because it was normalized.

Kerry: 16:54

Right.

Chrisy: 16:54

And he never really. He wasn't nice when he drank and he was insulting my grandmother got the most of it. I think my dad would sometimes get it when my dad wasn't present, Right, my grandfather seemed to be really open to being insulting about my dad, but I don't remember my dad.

Kerry: 17:15

But you had another disorder.

Chrisy: 17:17

There was another disease that I was witness to. I like to call myself sometimes growing up, and maybe you feel this way to sort of a silent observer.

Kerry: 17:27

Oh, yes, especially, I think, silent then, not now.

Chrisy: 17:30

Well, yeah, Well, because you're young and you write when you're the're the youngest you kind of don't have rights and generally I know with me I can't speak for your situation, but if you talk too much, you were told you're talking too much, so you sort of kept quiet. Yes, but we knew somebody who struggled with eating disorder and that must be a horrible disease. Yeah, I recognize that people struggle with a lot of different battles. Right, I've been fortunate, I guess, or I've been told that I've been fortunate as you've. If you've listened to our podcast, you know I used to smoke because I set myself on fire one time just trying to do it.

Chrisy: 18:11

So I wasn't very good at it. I guess I don't know, but I never had and I have no understanding of that need for it. Right, I like to do it because when we were, when I was doing it, yes, I thought it made me look cool, right, and it was a rebellion thing. Yeah, yeah, I'm going to do this because would my mom and dad want me to do it? No, no, that's why I'm doing it Right. And I was always able to quit. And then I sort of smoked a little while into my 20s and early 30s and but it was always short lived. Yeah, it was. I usually picked it up around the holidays because we would be socially out, mingling and drinking, and then it would be would be done, and my husband always said that you know, I don't remember what you said about the percentage of there are people who have the ability to not really have an issue with getting that addiction, to say, nicotine or something like that, something in the brain, I guess.

Chrisy: 19:07

I don't know. I have not been analyzed, this has not been proven. He was just stating that there has been studies on this, but the eating disorder growing up with being a witness to that. My problem wasn't with the person struggling with it, because I didn't understand it anyhow. That was their battle, but my problem as I got older and recognized what that was and how it was normalized, because we all knew what they were struggling with and we all knew when they were doing it. Right, it was glossed over as normal. My problem was is that the age I was when you were normalizing?

Chrisy: 19:45

this yeah, I would have been a preteen teenage girl. And eating disorders, and not just for girls, but I think for boys too.

Kerry: 19:54

I think more so almost now.

Chrisy: 19:56

At that age are very vulnerable to that and I think where my family basically failed me and I'm sorry.

Kerry: 20:05

I'm going to say it's a failure.

Chrisy: 20:07

It is they didn't protect me from it. If I knew somebody was struggling with that, if I felt I could help the person struggling, I would want to reach out to them. But my first and foremost job would be to protect my child and I would not want my children to have any sort of understanding that that's normal or healthy. Not that my family was saying it was healthy, right. They just they didn't say anything either way, right, and I feel a little cheated that way and a little angry because I just don't.

Kerry: 20:39

I think, thank God, thank God, I did not Right Be influenced by that and that kind of ties into all the crazy dieting too.

Chrisy: 20:47

Well, yeah, I think in some weird way maybe they were trying to get me to some weird spot with they were trying to show you a different well here.

Kerry: 20:59

You could maybe obtain the weight that you want by doing this instead of that, but it still was not healthy. I mean hot dogs and ice cream. No, I'm still, I can't yeah.

Chrisy: 21:12

No, no, but they didn't have any understanding of that Right. Also not to give credit to. I don't think anybody, during any time period, should force a young girl or boy to be on weird diets. Yes, I just don't think it's something that should be done. It was done with me, but okay time period. I mean, you stood in the checkout line at the grocery store yep, how many dopey little weight watchers.

Chrisy: 21:37

Books, I know, or magazines the inquire, the breakthrough diet you'll lose 50 pounds, right, and you, you know it was pushed in your face constantly. It was very normalized, it was so yeah but uh, yeah, no, bulimia, anorexia, horrible, horrible diseases. Yeah, we don't hear. I mean, they're still there, I'm sure. Yeah, I'm sure they're there. But remember when we grew up yeah, it was really they were really trying to bring awareness to that. Yes, meaning we saw they made tv movies about it. They did with actresses.

Chrisy: 22:13

There was that one actress that came out. I forgot her name because I didn't watch the show. Believe it or not, I didn't watch something. You didn't watch a movie. Well, it wasn't a movie, it was a tv show I wasn't a dopey tv shows. Some of them I thought were beneath me, but it was an actress on. Was that Growing Pains?

Kerry: 22:32

Oh, tracy Gold, tracy Gold. Yes.

Chrisy: 22:35

She was very much out there with her struggles that she made. Good job, dj Nick. Yeah, thank you. Karen Carpenter was also in it. Well, that has become a punchline, which is that's sad. I've heard some people really use that as a punch line, which is really unfortunate. Right, and yeah, and karen carpenter definitely was one where it came out how she struggled very much with that, but that tracy gold I remember yeah, that was like in the late 80s they made a made for tv show and she was really struggling with that, yeah, during her time on that TV show.

Chrisy: 23:10

And she made a movie. That about a girl. It wasn't specifically about her, but because she dealt with it and it was a very I remember watching that and it was very troubling, yeah, and scary and just awful. You know, like any addiction is that people struggle for there. It's a scary idea.

Kerry: 23:31

It is and it's hard. And again I just have to say it's hard being on the other side, the, the family member, you know the family member, that, where that's your, you know your spouse, your sibling, your child, your best friend, whatever you know to how do you help without enabling and how I mean? So it is, it's a sensitive topic and you know, I know, this is probably a little heavier than we would normally go, but it's something that affected both of us.

Kerry: 23:57

And it kind of, in a way, has started down this road of dysfunction, junkies and how we came to be, as far as you know the different lifestyles and how our families handle different things, and so we just kind of wanted to dabble in that a little bit today, kind of moving forward. Well, anyways, we know that this was kind of a heavy subject today, but it was something that both Christy and I have talked a lot about, because we both dealt with different types of addictions or disorders and in our childhood and it's kind of led into different things in our life and how we've you know, because our families either normalized it or didn't talk about it and you know how we're facing things now as adults.

Chrisy: 24:37

Yeah, and just because we aren't professionals. Just want to make sure we have a little footnote here when we're talking about the addictions versus a disorder.

Kerry: 24:47

Yeah, In other words, we might not be using the right words and we apologize for that, but what we're trying to do is just gain awareness in that this is something that affects all of us in one form or another. You know whether we know somebody or whether personally handling it, but you know this is our safe place, this is where we talk about things, and we hope that you guys feel safe, too, to talk about things. And if you want to share your thoughts you know maybe some struggles you're having with us and if you don't want to put it on our Facebook page or Instagram and you just want to privately email us, you know and share your story, we would love to. We would love to listen to you and if it's something that you know we could share with others, we would. You know we want to do that Because, yeah, life is hard.

Chrisy: 25:26

Life is hard and we really want to promote, if you know, anybody who is struggling with any of these addictions disorders please research, help them.

Chrisy: 25:37

There's so many places you can find. Yes, help, you know, reach out, try to help that person, ask them if they need help or, you know, want to talk, or maybe if you talk to somebody who specializes in these areas, they can maybe give you some guidance, give you some support, because you're dealing with something like that. Probably my problem with saying these things incorrectly only because and I don't mean any disrespect, because, number one, I'm not a professional, but because it was normalized for me. Yes, so I have a really lousy time of establishing, because nobody sat down with me and talked to me about what the hell was going on. So, pardon me, but, yeah, addiction disease disorder. Oh, my god, I got it all. I got it all okay I'm messed up.

Kerry: 26:22

We all are because, chrisy, we're junkies in our own way.

Kerry: 26:33

We love you all, no matter what no matter what, but before we go, I do want to lead into a couple things coming up, because we are going to a whole new level here at dysfunction junkies. You know we've we've kind of got our feet on the ground. We were what into our 46th episode now and been going strong, and but it is time for us to start something that we are going to call Junkies Care. And that is because we do care and we do want to do the right thing and we want to recognize different things, different organizations. So be sure to tune into our next episode that's going to be coming up on the first of the month. Every first of the month we're going to have a junkies care episode and it's going to be about how we are going to be talking about different organizations or programs, things like that, because we care.

Kerry: 27:22

So, that's just a little teaser on what's coming up next and we're very excited about it. We are so stay tuned for that and, as always, you can find us on Facebook or Instagram. You can reach out to us on our email dysfunctionjunkies at gmailcom. We would love to hear from you and, hey, if you need some help, please make sure you reach out to somebody and we care for you guys.

Chrisy: 27:45

Yes, don't be ashamed to ask for help ever.

Kerry: 27:47

Right, all right, you guys, we'll see you next week. Yep, bye, bye.