Addiction and Recovery 101

Drew Mariani (0:00)

The issues that matter most, right here.

SPEAKER_2 (0:03)

The Drew Mariani Show.

SPEAKER_3 (0:05)

On Relevant Radio.

Gene Bartisan (0:10)

Gene Bartisan grew up on a farm with an alcoholic father.

Gene Bartisan (0:13)

I can remember going through the barns and the haylofts and finding bottles of vodka and taking them down to the creek and smashing them.

Gene Bartisan (0:21)

Bartisan himself drank for decades while raising four kids with his wife. He got sober, but the cycle continued with two of his children. Bartisan's son Tommy drank himself to death in 2016

It's that pain that drove Bartisan to look for solutions. He was shocked to discover how little funding there is for research on alcohol use disorder, which affects nearly 28 million people in the US, about one in 10 Americans.

Gene Bartisan (0:47)

We don't know what this medical condition is, and therefore the research becomes paramount.

Drew Mariani (0:53)

It's The Drew Mariani Show on Relevant Radio.

Yeah, that was NBC News reporting on alcohol addiction and some addiction research. Good afternoon. I think addiction is one of those things that affects every family. I don't think anyone is really immune, whether it's your direct family, or it's maybe your niece, your nephew, your grandchild, somebody that you love, a sibling. And you might not think of it yourself, but when you hear the word addiction, and I want you to pause for a moment and just consider this, because addiction isn't just about drugs or alcohol.

It really is about anything that controls you. I've done shows on compulsive gambling. We've talked about sexual addictions. We've talked about food addictions. I mean, addiction, I think, is really such a tool of the evil one. But it can be conquered. It can be overcome. So often you're faced with pain and loneliness and wounds. You have a sense of unworthiness. You don't feel that you can be healed. Let me just give you a quick stat here. I just came across as substance abuse in mental health services.

It's SAMHSA, the Substance Abuse and Mental Health Services Administration. It says that 48 million Americans age 12 and older battle a substance use disorder in recent years. 48 million Americans. I was stunned by that number. It's 12 and older. So this is reserved to 20, 30, 40, 50 some years. That's one in five people. So think about that. You look around the room, right? Think about your family. One in five people are probably struggling with this.

And I was having a conversation with my next two guests who are in studio, and we're gonna open the phones for you. You can call in if you're going through this with your family. If you are struggling, you need some advice, some help. Whatever the addiction is, love to talk about it. We talk about the history, the source of it. We can also talk about healing. Maybe you've conquered yours. Maybe you are in the fight with it right now. So feel free to join us at triple eight, nine one four, nine one four nine. Where does it begin? We were talking before the studio very often in the home. You might have grown up in a dysfunctional family where there's chaos or neglect or abuse or some sort of other maybe emotional distance, maybe addiction. It quite often ripples down. And how you learn to cope with it, how you learn to deal with it, often manifests a little bit later in your life. Maybe you were never taught how to process the pain that you had to endure or that dysfunction. And maybe your love even feels conditional. So we're going to talk about it today. Silence is always safer, isn't it? It always feels that way than truth, than bringing these things into the light. But in the studio with me today are two people who understand this intimately. They battled addiction. They know what it is like to feel the weight of it and ultimately to find freedom from it and now they're helping others do the same thing. Scott Weeman joins me. He's the founder of Catholic in Recovery. And you can find more by going to that website, catholicinrecovery.com. It's a great resource for you. Father Charlie Becker, a long time friend of mine, a contributor to this program over the years, is a wonderful priest in the Archdiocese of Chicago, a member of the Mary movement of priests. And I've been with him when he's held conferences called Breaking the Chains of Addiction. Father also struggled at one point in his life with addiction. And gentlemen, it's great to have you both here with me. Welcome.

Charlie Becker (4:01)

It's true.