Finding Peace and Recovery: The Role of a Willing Heart w/ Roxanna Johnson

Narrator: This is Pathway to Recovery, an SA Lifeline Foundation podcast featuring hosts Tara McCausland, who is the SA Lifeline Executive Director, and Justin B., a sex addict living in long-term recovery. We have conversations with experts and individuals who understand the pathway to healing from sexual addiction and betrayal trauma because we believe that recovering individuals leads to the healing of families. Welcome to the Pathway to Recovery podcast.

Justin B.: I'm Justin B., and I just have a little bit of business to take care of before we jump into today's awesome recording on the recovery puzzle, A Willing Heart. The couple weeks ago, we had our first ever SAL 12-step conference held in Orem, Utah, and it was powerful. I'm super grateful that I was able to be there and meet so many of you in person. Anyways, I want to announce that the recordings of those breakout sessions and of those keynote speakers of that conference is now available to download on the digital library.

If you go to sal12step.org, you can click on the button up at the top center and purchase that for the next year for a very low price of $5. You have access to it, full access to all of that So I highly encourage you going to check that out and go and check out all the other things. One other bit of information that is super important: the SAL book, second edition, is now available also for purchase on the website, either salifeline.org or at sal12step.org.

I highly recommend you also purchase that book. It's super powerful. There's some new information on the recovery puzzle that we will be going over over the next. Several months in this podcast. Jump in there, get it whether it be digital or hard copy. It's well worth it. Now let's jump into today's conversation. Welcome to the Pathway to Recovery podcast. My name is Justin B. I am a son of an all-powerful and perfectly loving God, and a sex addict living in the miracle of one day at a time recovery from that sexual addiction.

I'm grateful to be a co-host of this podcast. We just finished up a series. of going over each of the 12 steps, and we've got the new SAL book, the second edition, that is now for sale in the bookstore online. So if you go to sal12step.org and look up the books, you can now purchase the second edition of the SAL book that has a lot of new topics and different ways of discussing things that are available to us.

What we're going to be doing now for the next Several months as we go through this is going through the SAL recovery puzzle that can be found there. Today we're going to be talking about willing heart, which is the centerpiece, but we'll get into that in a minute. I'm super grateful to have with me as my guest Roxanna Johnson, who is one of the pioneers of the SA Lifeline Foundation and of SAL 12-step, and we'll have her introduce herself here in just a minute.

But I'm just so grateful to be able to speak with her and so many others like her as I walk this path with others finding healing. finding hope, finding recovery in my life and in my family. Roxanna, you've asked me to call you Roxy, and I'm happy to do that. Roxy, why don't you come and just introduce yourself? Tell us a little bit about yourself and what brought you into the rooms of recovery.

Roxanna Johnson: Okay. First off, thanks for having me, Justin. I was raised in an alcoholic home, and about my late 30s, I went to my first therapy appointment because I was treating a daughter the same way I had been treated, and that opened my eyes that addiction had affected me. It affected how I thought. But I did some work, and life seemed to go on pretty good. But at 46 years old, I had been ill for several months. My husband thought I was going to die, and during that time he started acting differently.

There had been some changes in his behavior, but during the time I was ill, it became pronounced. And at the end of that illness, he sat me down. And gave a very sterile confession of sexual misconduct. I went into shock and I didn't know what to do. He promised that nothing would ever happen again. I tried to believe him, but a week later, some of those odd behaviors I had begun to notice happened again. And the Spirit said, check his wallet.

Wow. I had never done anything like that before. I checked his wallet and I found some motel receipts, and I just went numb. But the next morning, I checked bank records and I found more, and I asked him to meet me at a park, and I said, I don't know who you are. or what has happened, but if you don't get some help right now, I'm going to divorce you. Because my mind was blown. To his credit, he was terrified by the choices he had made.

And to his credit, he checked himself into a residential treatment center because he didn't know what was going on. He knew he was dabbling in inappropriate drug use, alcohol use, and sexual behavior. And at the end of about 40 days, the counselor sat us down and looked at me and said, I think your husband is a sex addict. And I said, what is that? Because in my mind, it conjured up just fringe populations. And he guided us best he could, and we landed at LifeStar.

And through LifeStar, we found out about SA meetings. Actually, I have to back up. In that residential treatment program, Jack was going to 12-step meetings every single day of the week. in a variety of places in the area we lived. And one of them was that SA meeting. And that same meeting eventually turned into an SAL 12-step meeting. And when that change happened, we chose to continue with the SAL 12-step meetings. And at the same time, he found out there was a Family meeting, and he asked me to try those meetings.

I was in a place where this is your problem and I don't like you. But within a couple of months, I realized that I was so isolated. I didn't know where to turn. And I tried a different one, probably just out of spite. It was just a great session. And so I tried The One that was happening the same time as Jack's meeting. And I felt the Spirit when I walked in and there was already sisterhood.

And I knew I had found something that helped me. And we spent years and years in those meetings.

Justin B.: Thank you for walking through that introduction and everything. I want to go back and ask you a question about a couple of things that you brought up. You said that after your husband came out of the residential thing, he sat down with a therapist and he said, I think your husband's a sex addict. I remember the first time I even heard the terminology sex addict. It was in— would have been in the late '90s, and I was listening to a sports talk radio show, and I heard somebody, one of the athletes, said, I'm a sex addict, I've got an illness.

And I remember the talk show host and myself just kind of saying, whatever, you're just making an excuse, you're a pervert. And all that time I'm looking at myself and going, huh, I wonder if that's me. But no, that guy's a pervert. I'm nothing like that. So talk to me a little bit about your experience with that and how you came to understand it as an addiction, as a disease, as an unwellness.

Roxanna Johnson: You just brought up a memory, Justin. In those odd behaviors when I was sick, Jack had started taking some of my medications, and I knew that was not right. And being the person I am, I went to the library and I brought home a whole stack of books on substance abuse. But somehow, and I'm sure it was divine, I ended up with He Restoreth My Soul. And that was the only book that Jack read. In those moments, I thought, oh, that's creepy.

But in subsequent years, I found out what a beautiful book that was. And I was so grateful for the intervention that I had actually picked that book up, because I'm sure that it was something that started Jack thinking, I wonder. Anyway, so the second part of your question is that I wrote federal grants as a career. And so from the very onset, I started watching, I started noticing who was coming to groups. We also attended a marriage group that was being held in that building, or as soon as we had any recovery at all, we started Attending that, and one of the things that I love about SA Lifeline is they encourage learning.

It was that learning that allowed my heart to open up enough to consider that Jack was dealing with something that was far larger than just his. Moral self-control. Real Croshaw used to say they have to want recovery more than they want to breathe, and so watching Jack, I know that's true. And every single person that walks into those rooms from the attic side. I am so grateful to them because they are working at overcoming something that is far greater than they are.

I am so grateful that as part of SA Lifeline, they encouraged me to learn so I could have that as part of my recovery that let me see my husband and others as people, people who had gotten involved with something before their mental ability allowed them to process it appropriately. And they'd gotten hooked into something bigger than they were.

Justin B.: Thank you so much for walking through that. I appreciate it, Roxy. Next question I have for you based on your initial share was you were raised in an alcoholic home. And it took you a few decades to realize that had an effect on the way you raised your children, the way you interacted with people. What was that realization like? Was that a painful realization? Was that a relief of a realization? How did that affect you?

Roxanna Johnson: The first time I realized that it had affected who I was, I cried all the way home because I brought this deficiency with me into Esenon and Sal, the family group. I wanted to beat my past. I wanted to just buck it up and move forward and make good choices and just try and ignore that the past had happened. What I learned in recovery is that You can't do that. That in and of itself was one of my first realizations of my need for a willing heart.

I had to accept that I had been changed by what I had lived through because of addictions, not my own. But that process did allow me to be human and lose some of the heavy burden because I was trying to control everything.

Justin B.: So, Roxie, you said that Ril used to say, and I've heard her say this too, so I think she continues to say it, is something like, they need to want recovery more than they want oxygen. And I think that's a really good definition of willing heart. I'm willing to do Whatever it takes to recover. How does that translate to the betrayed side, to your experience? What do you have to be willing to do in that arena?

Roxanna Johnson: First off, in the 12 steps, I have always been curious why willingness— that's— those are actual steps. As I've matured in recovery, I have Come to understand that is for a specific purpose. And having a willing heart is at the essence of the first 3 steps. And so a spouse has to be willing to accept the path that God has her on. That's number one. I had to be willing to accept that my marriage was going to be a changed marriage, that it was not the marriage I had thought it was.

Unknown to me, it would become a much better marriage. I had to accept God's timetable. I had to accept God's answers when they weren't what I wanted. And I had to accept God's justice. All of those required me to Yeah, I love that.

Justin B.: So is there anything else from your story that you'd like to cover right now before I jump into reading a little bit from the new SAL book about Willing Heart and the Recovery Puzzle?

Roxanna Johnson: Maybe I could tell the story of when I actually remember surrendering to God and becoming willing. Please do. Jack and I had been going to meetings for probably almost a year at this point, and I was angry. I was angry that my marriage and my family weren't what I thought it was. I was angry at the pain I was experiencing. Once I was in my kitchen. I still remember where I was standing. Somewhere I realized that Jack was working recovery and I was still angry, that my anger was being nurtured by myself, by my choices, by my attitudes.

And I also knew that God had asked me to stay in the marriage for a time, to give it a chance. And I remember looking up. And saying, I don't understand how I can love this man again. I don't understand how I can forgive him. But you believe in this. Show me how. Please show me how. And Justin, I don't know if the cosmos changed, but I just remember in my own memory, that was a turning point.

Yeah.

Justin B.: I love that story. And I think while the words are different, while the, the situation is slightly different in all of these cases, I think that surrender moment for everybody looks pretty similar, where I say, I have no idea how this is going to work. In fact, I cannot logically see it working. But apparently you got of my understanding, you got of somebody else's understanding that it works for them. Yeah. get it, and I'm just gonna fall into your arms for now and see what happens.

And like you said, I don't know if the cosmos shifts, if things change. Something happens when I am broken to that point to say, I don't get it. There's no way it's going to happen in my wisdom, but yours, I guess we'll give it a shot because mine isn't working. Anything else you want to add on that?

Roxanna Johnson: No, except that what you said is beautiful. And I agree completely. As I watched hundreds of women come through those meetings, I saw them have to surrender as well.

Justin B.: Thank you for sharing that experience. I loved it, Roxy. All right. So what I'm going to do is I'm going to turn us to the new SAL book. I'm going to read a couple of paragraphs here and then the bullet point on willing heart to give us a General overview of the SAL Recovery Puzzle, and then a general overview of Willing Heart. So on page 104 and 105, we— in the new book and also on the website, and I'll put a link to that in the show notes where you can see an image of the, the SAL Recovery Puzzle, is this information.

I'm going to go ahead and read this and then we'll get into it. A puzzle is not complete without every piece in its place. Likewise, every unique piece of the SAL Recovery Puzzle is an important part of a comprehensive program of working recovery from sexual addiction and betrayal trauma. The 12 pieces of the puzzle are separated into 2 parts: 1, the inner 7 pieces representing the heart and mind, which are the beginning elements of recovery, and 2, the 5 border pieces represent the action elements of recovery work.

It is our experience that the 12 pieces of the SAL Recovery Puzzle synergistically work together to promote healthy living. With a willing heart purposefully in the center and incorporating the principles in our lives described in the puzzle pieces, we experience connection with our fellows and with the God of our own understanding who heals our hearts and minds. Living in recovery and healing from compulsive pornography use Sexual addiction and betrayal trauma is possible. We assure you it happens.

The SAL Recovery Puzzle illustrates the 12 essential pieces that are required for lasting recovery. Now I'm going to skip down to bullet point number 1, which is willing heart, which is our topic here. Willing heart. The work of recovery and living in recovery revolves around a willing heart. When we choose to have a willing heart, we finally let go of all the facades and justifications. Counterintuitively, This letting go does not bring feelings of despair. Instead, we begin to see it as a golden doorway to hope.

It is our experience that no matter how bleak our circumstances may be, with a willing heart, living in recovery is possible. And then there's a quote from Abraham Lincoln here, and that quote is, nothing in this world is impossible to a willing heart. So as I read that, Roxy, are there some things that kind of stick out at you? As key pieces of this conversation?

Roxanna Johnson: First off, I love that the willing heart is in the middle of that puzzle. And when I read myself what you just read, I had a memory, and I'm sure that Jack learned this or got this idea in those meetings, but he would say to people that we are all a puzzle. We all have different pieces or different roles. We're parents, we're employees, we're aunts, uncles, we're husband, wife. But in the middle of every one of us is the God piece.

And what he suggested is that as humans, we get into trouble when we try and put something else in that peace, whether it's money, sex, alcohol, drug use, control, any of those, we get into trouble. And it's only when we put God back in that centerpiece that life becomes manageable and happy. Putting God in the center requires a willing heart.

Justin B.: Absolutely. My wife and I talk about this a lot. We're— we've been teaching a dating and interpersonal relations class to young single adults here recently, and it's evolved into a conversation about who is at my center. Because if I'm putting my— this person that I'm trying to create a relationship with at my center, it's going to skew everything. I have to keep God at my center. If I'm putting myself at the center, that is going to potentially destroy any relationship because it's all about me, selfishness.

Putting God at the center, I think what you said, that is the very essence of a willing heart. I am willing to step out of the center. I'm willing to move somebody else out of the center in order for God to take God's rightful place on the throne in the center of everything. Do you have any other thoughts on that, Roxy?

Roxanna Johnson: Just that, that is one thing that I learned in those meetings is how much I put my husband in that centerpiece or my children in that centerpiece or my boss. And that was one of the most beautiful parts of recovery for me, is learning to put God back in the right place and to accept His wisdom and His purposes and His path in my life rather than bulldozing ahead with my own plan. I had a therapist.

say to me one time. She said, Roxy, why don't you let God lead for a minute? And through this, I struggled with my concept of God. It had to be realigned in recovery, but I never doubted God. And I remember looking at her and saying, That's silly. I let God lead. I know He's in charge. And she laughed and she said, no. She said, Roxie, you're always saying, God, I have this wonderful idea. Come on, let's do this.

She says, why don't you let God say, here's My idea?

Justin B.: Roxie, that is so cool because in very few places are we going to get that type of friend, mentor, support person who's going to say, no, Roxy, you aren't putting God at the center. You are not letting God lead, and this is what's happening. And you can say those types of things because if I walk up to someone at church and they say, man, I'm just trying to let God lead, and I said whatever and say that same thing to them, they're going to be offended and they're going to be like, how dare you talk to me like that?

I love this community because we can talk to each other that way. And I want to go just a little bit Into what you shared, you found yourself putting your husband, your children, your boss, whoever it may be, at the center. When God is at the center, how do those other pieces, those other people fall into place? And where do they fall into place in that sphere of your life?

Roxanna Johnson: They fall into place as precious human connections. During the recovery time, one of my goals for myself was that I wanted my marriage to be saved if possible. But by putting God in the center, I also put the outcome in His hands. And therefore, I was able to relate to Jack on more of a human level with, this is your choice. After I had been working recovery for A year and a half, I distinctly remember us having dinner one night and him looking at me and saying, you're moving on, aren't you?

And he didn't mean I was moving out of the marriage. He meant that he could see my growth, that he could see that I was being a whole person, that I was refinding joy. And purpose. And I put my hand on his and I said, yes, and I'd love you to join me.

Justin B.: Man, that is such a powerful story. I've shared this on this podcast and in lots of places. My wife went into the rooms of recovery 7 or 8 years before I did. She was working her recovery and she moved on without me, and I saw the growth. I saw all the things happening. But it wasn't until she said something to the effect of, I'm moving on, and if you aren't joining me, I'll be sad, but I'll be okay because God is at my center.

And that for me was the wake-up call of holy cow, she has moved on and I am behind. I need to catch up if I want to stay with her. And I really did. And that was that, that rock bottom, or it precipitated the rock bottom that made me go, okay, I guess I'm gonna have a willing heart. And do something that I have never been willing to do before in order to try and recover. So I love that he pointed that out to you.

That's so powerful. What was his response and how did his recovery change after that?

Roxanna Johnson: I saw him think more. And that's something that I want to express, Justin, is as I learned to hold boundaries, And do the follow-through on those boundaries. What it provided is it wasn't to control Jack or to make him behave differently, because I was holding boundaries from the point of this is keeping me safe, my heart safe. And what it did is it allowed him to think, I wonder what it is about my behavior in this area that makes Roxy feel unsafe.

And so it was the impetus for lots of thoughtful conversations where we actually, for the first time in years, began to communicate about what each of us needed from a relationship. That blessing has been expanded in All my significant relationships, my adult children, my grandchildren, I can now see them as individual people that I make choices and they make choices, and I get to invite them, or I get to suggest behaviors that might benefit their life.

But my worth is not tied To them deciding a certain path.

Justin B.: Roxy, I want to go back to something you just said there. You said that I was able to communicate with him my needs, and he was able to communicate with me his needs in the relationship. And it was something that hadn't happened for forever. This is a question I have from my own experience, and from observation of sponsoring and working with lots and lots of other men who are sex addicts. When does the addict earn or receive the right to be able to say, hey, here are some of my needs, and have those listened to or honored?

What are your thoughts on that?

Roxanna Johnson: That is a great question. And for Jack and I, it happened as trust began to be built, when he started honoring my boundaries, when he started thinking about them and having conversations rather than kicking against them or having fits because I was holding a boundary, then that developed trust, just a drop at a time, so to speak, using an analogy we used of a trust bucket. Yeah. And the other part of the answer that's really critical is when Jack began to empathize with what his betrayals had done to me, that trust grew, and that is when His empathy to see me as a person was reciprocated, and I was able to turn around and start to see him as a person.

Now, I have to add that attending meetings helped in this regard, because by this point, we were also attending the marriage meetings. And I could see the good and the bad in the other addicted spouses. I grew to honor their efforts and I grew to admire their efforts. And that brings up another story, if you'll indulge me. As I said, my dad was an alcoholic until after I left home. well after. And he did not follow the same recovery process.

But from afar, I watched as he first white-knuckled, and then he accepted the God of his understanding, and then he healed. And there was a lot of healing. But God gives us advocates in funny places sometimes. And my dad became my advocate because he understood addiction. He understood that Jack could be 2 people at one time, and I didn't have to defend that I both loved and hated him in some moments. And discussing this one time, my dad told me a story, and it took me years to figure out he was talking about himself, but he talked about going and seeing a clergy member.

And I'm sure he didn't talk about it, that it was him, but he talked about having a conversation. And the leader said something profound. He said, in my position, I get to work with some of the very best people and some of the very worst people, and oftentimes they are the very same people.

Justin B.: I'm blown away because that is my experience as I have worked very closely with so many of the people that 20 years ago I would've looked at and said, that is one of the worst people that ever walked the face of the earth, knowing their story. But as I get to work with them and sit with them, I learn that they are some of the best people that I've ever met. That same person, Such a powerful concept.

And I hope you out there in the listening audience who may have recently learned of a loved one's addiction, whether it be a sexual addiction or whatever it may be, that does not mean they're a bad person. It means they're a sick person and they, they need support. They need love. And that love may mean boundaries. That may mean complete separation of a whole lot of things, but Beneath that mess is very likely one of the best people in the world.

Man, thank you for walking into that and sharing that. Is there anything else on that?

Roxanna Johnson: I just want to say that as I attended meetings all those years, and as I listened to the spouses, and as I listened to my husband, And his journey, and as I grew to know other men who were addicted sexually, I really found what you said to be true: that all of us, because in those spouse and family meetings are people that struggle with their own poor coping skills, their own issues, their own deficiencies, and we have to work really hard.

To overcome them and to humble ourselves and admit to them. And we have to work really hard to turn the reins over to God and to accept other people as they are, not as we want them to be. That second, we have to learn to use the word yet. But in that process, we learn that The people in those rooms are wonderful, gifted, and often the most empathetic people you will ever find on this earth.

Justin B.: Thank you, Roxy. One of the things that has most impressed me in this process is just how you and other spouses of us addicts are eventually able to see us exactly that way. I'm so grateful for a wife who says, you know what, Justin, I know you're a good man. And hearing that come from her mouth and from her heart just motivates me to continue down this path. And it also helps me see that I am not what I have done.

That's not who I am. All right, I want to read a couple more things from the body of the willing heart section. This is on pages 116 and 117 of the new SAL book. And really, I just want to cover the last 2 paragraphs of it. About halfway through the second to last paragraph, it reads, through participating in that program— and it's referring back to Alcoholics Anonymous, but we're going to be talking about SAL 12-step— through participating in that program, many members began to raise their rock bottom.

They could develop a willing heart without first falling to the same depths of self-destruction as many others had done. The same principle holds true for sexual addiction. We get to decide when we have had enough. We get to decide what our rock bottom will be. And then the last paragraph: Our experience is that people are ready to change when the pain of their situation surpasses the pain of the solution. When we truly have a willing heart, we will give up whatever is required.

Then we take the action to do what is necessary to change and heal. This giving up and giving over to the God of our understanding is proof that we have chosen to have a willing heart. As I read through those paragraphs there, Roxy, what are some of the principles that jump out at you? And do you have any experience that you'd like to share from any of that?

Roxanna Johnson: What you read just struck that truth chord in me. And I remember mostly the feeling of being able to go to the God of my understanding and say, I am miserable being angry and vengeful, and I want to do what it takes to bring back the peace and serenity Yeah, as you've shared, that was a couple of years of intensive work before you started feeling that peace.

Justin B.: It wasn't, hey, I went to a meeting, I went to 12 meetings, I, I talked to a therapist a couple of times. It wasn't that way. It took a while. Talk to us about being patient in this process of having a willing heart and seeing the fruits of that willing heart.

Roxanna Johnson: Oh, wow. That's a big question for me. Just in bits. Because I was not patient. I wanted 12 steps, 12 weeks. I wanted things to just be fixed. And that's what I eventually had to learn, is that things weren't going to be fixed. They were going to be worked through. And it was a journey, and I would benefit and learn along that journey. I still remember one day being mad at God because He had allowed the addiction to grow for 20-plus years in my home without me knowing about it.

And I remember I was in my garden. I used to work things out in the dirt. I say if I could talk to God and work in the dirt, I could get through a lot of feelings. Yeah. And I was mad at him that day about that. And I still remember very gently him saying, but you would have turned and ran. You wouldn't have been able to sit with this and go through the process. And I went, you're right.

And It made me talk about, or it made me realize all the things that recovery was changing in me. I also want to share something that I heard just last week as I was thinking about this opportunity and preparing for it. And it was a church meeting where a lot of people had actually shared about some really tough things in their lives. None of them were about addiction, but they were really tough things. And a woman got up at the end and she said, I am so grateful for a God who allows us to live in the messiness, work through our hurt and our pain, and recover from our tragedies.

And He walks by us the whole way. And to me, that's the essence of patience, is finally learning that we're in this for the journey, and God's going to walk by us. He's going to walk with us on the good days, and He's going to walk with us on the bad days. And sometimes He's going to carry us on those days because they'll be so hard.

Justin B.: Yeah, this is super powerful, Roxy. Is there anything else on willing heart that you'd like to touch on before we jump over into discussing this book that you've written based on these experiences that you've had?

Roxanna Johnson: One more thing I had to be willing to do is I had to learn to be willing to let go of pain. And I have to give you a visual. When I realized this, I was actually in a meeting and we were talking about surrendering. And all of a sudden, I had almost like a visual of me clenching onto my pain. It was like if I let it go, then I would let go of the validation of what had happened to me.

And somehow it wouldn't be real. Somehow the hurt wouldn't be acknowledged. And so, I would encourage spouses to actually and deliberately approach the God of their understanding about how they can let go of their pain. Because once you let go of your pain, it ceases to have power over you. And it ceases to control your life.

Justin B.: Thank you so much for going there. I think that's so powerful. And I can speak from the addict side on this also. I can clench onto the addiction or the trauma that I believe led to the addiction or whatever with such ferocity. Hey, what am I going to be without this? But if I'm just willing to open my fists, let it go, and say, God of my understanding, I don't know what the next step is. It doesn't make any sense to me, but I'm willing to walk there.

The freedom that comes from that is just amazing. A couple of weeks ago at the SAL conference, I got to meet you face to face. You said, Justin, before we talk, here's this book that I've written about my experience on this, and it's called Forgotten in the Battle with Sexual Addiction: The Journey of a Spouse, and the subtitle Guidance for Spouses. those who support them. Roxie, why don't you take a minute and share some of the story that I'm sure inspired you to write this?

But why did you write this book? And who is it for?

Roxanna Johnson: As I watched multitudes of spouses come through the doors of those meetings, I began to recognize that there were certain principles that each of them had to learn. There were certain steps that they each had to go through. I loved newcomer welcome. I loved that position in those meetings. And so I began— I was a writer. I began to write stuff down. And as I watched the pain and as I heard from almost everyone the isolation, the same similar story of isolation that I had felt.

A seed was planted of, of people need to know. The spouses out there that are still isolated need to know they're not alone. And so I started writing. There wasn't much time, but I did get a little bit done. A year or two into it, I was told to put it away. And I put it away for almost 10 years. And I believe that's because The Lord knew that I had a few more crevices of bitterness to let go of, a few more hangups to acknowledge and deal with.

I lost Jack to heart disease a bit over 6 years ago. A couple of years after he passed away, I was thinking about my bucket list, what I wanted in my life, purposes for my life. And I realized that the only thing that was really on my bucket list that I hadn't at least participated in some was writing this book. And so I jumped into it. I spent 6 months saying, oh, nobody knows, nobody wants to hear what you have to say.

You're old-fashioned. All these naysaying voices in my head. And then it It was like God started putting people in my path, and I would hear this story and that story and this story. And so I just— I start the book out by saying that when I first walked into a meeting, I didn't trust anyone. And it was the spouses who shared their stories with me that started me to believe. that there was hope and that there was happiness ahead.

And they expected me to honor their stories, to keep them sacred. And this book is written as a tribute to them and for all the other spouses that will walk through those meetings to say, your story is sacred and I will honor it. And I hope that you glean some nugget from my story and what I learned to help you on your journey.

Justin B.: That's so cool. So as you wrote this, was there a certain passage that you may want to share with us some of the meaning behind it as we have this conversation?

Roxanna Johnson: Yeah. So there is a section of my book Or a chapter titled The Things That Get to Change. And the book is written in 4 parts: Beginning Your Journey, What You're Fighting, It Won't Always Feel Like This, and then Building a New Normal. And I'd like to read you the introduction to part 3, which is It Won't Always Feel Like This. I first quote Emily Robinson Adams: Doubt is the journey. It's the path. It's the way. It's the means.

And we begin to think about our lives differently. I write, you might be wondering, why do I have to learn and work recovery? This is my spouse's problem. I will be okay when he or she changes. Unfortunately, This just isn't true. The good news is that your learning and growth will pave a pathway to peace. I have shared many journal entries that show my struggle while working recovery. When reading those entries, you might have felt some validation at my rawness, but these entries show the darkness in my mind, not just in Jack's.

behaviors, I do an entry. It starts out with what I want to end with. I am grateful to be finally learning and accepting that I am separate from Jack and I can let go.

Justin B.: Thank you for sharing this, Roxie. And this is so powerful. I highly recommend everybody go check out this book. Listen to Roxie's experience, strength, and hope as she shared it here. apply these principles. One of the more powerful things that, that I wrote down is this concept: things won't be fixed, they will be worked through. And in working through them, I get peace, and the end result is even better than what I thought was the pre-broken pieces.

So Roxy, as we close up this, is there anything else before I go into the closing questions that you'd like to say?

Roxanna Johnson: Because I eventually became willing To see myself and to accept and surrender to God. My life is a lot better. I know what human connection is, even though I miss Jack and I miss him tremendously. And even though I've gone through some really hard things since he passed away that also deal with addiction. I can be happy, and it's because I know how to have peace in my life, and I know when times are hard how to approach reobtaining peace.

I wouldn't have that skill without recovery. I never ever thought that I would be grateful. And while it caused immense pain, I'm a better person. I will always be grateful for that.

Justin B.: Beautiful. Thank you so much, Roxy. All right, closing questions that I always do in these podcasts is the following couple of questions. What words of advice or experience, strength, and hope do you have for the newcomer, the person who is just coming into the meetings for the first time, maybe has had their world— feels like it, it's exploded on them. And then the next question is, what do you have for the person that's been a pioneer in the program, been around for well over a decade?

Roxanna Johnson: For the spouse and their addict first coming into those meetings, I would just say stick with it. It works when you work it, and You are worth it. And it takes time, but gradually, imperceptibly, you're going to start noticing that you look at life differently, that you approach people differently, that you believe in yourself again, and that you can trust your own intuition. For me, those are the times when I started rebuilding my joy. And it was early in recovery.

It doesn't take that long to start noticing that your life is getting better incrementally. So I would say to the newcomer, please, there are people in those rooms who will automatically love and care about you because you're there. And there is hope for your life. For the old-timer like me, gosh, Justin, one of the most painful experiences dealing with recovery is I remarried after Jack passed. And within a month of that marriage, terrible buttons were pushed in his life.

And he succumbed To those buttons and then did not want to seek recovery. That broke my heart. It broke my dreams again. I felt foolish. I felt shamed that I had been fooled. But you know what? I knew to work through that shame. I knew to contact my therapist. I started attending meetings. I knew what to do. And because of that, recovery is still— it's the adventure of my life. And because of that experience, I know that God's going to continue handing me experiences that I will use.

Yeah. the same principles and the same skills until I pass from this life. You're going to need these principles for the rest of your life. I certainly am.

Justin B.: Thank you so much, Roxy. This has been a very powerful and meaningful conversation for me. I hope it's been meaningful for you, and I hope all those out there in the listening world just sense a bit of her light emanating from her and the joy, the happiness, the peace. That's the word that I think is most there, is the peace that emanates from Roxy. So everybody, if you want to be like Roxy and have that peace in your life, follow the things that she is trying to do.

I'm sure imperfectly, but Roxy, you're doing a great job. Thank you so much for this conversation. Thank you.

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