She Surrenders - The Podcast

Healing Generational Scars with Karen Ehman

• Sherry Hoppen • Season 5 • Episode 51

Share episode

New York Times best-selling author Karen Ehman shares her deeply personal narrative of growing up with an alcoholic father. Her courage in exposing the raw emotions of her childhood not only touches the heart but also opens the door to understanding the complexity of addiction's impact on families. Within these revelations lie powerful lessons of forgiveness and the indomitable strength found in surrendering to God those things we cannot change in those we love.
 As Karen's story unfolds, we probe the silent battles faced by those raised in homes marred by addiction. It's a discussion that uncovers the lasting effects of maintaining a veneer of normalcy amidst internal turmoil and the toxic relationship patterns that can emerge from such chaos. But there's hope—mentorship, community support, and choices- leading away from pain toward a healthier future. Karen's experiences shine a light on the importance of these lifelines in breaking free from the cycles of secrecy and addiction.
 Thank you, Karen, for your willingness to be vulnerable so that others will be encouraged as they listen to your story. May they find renewed hope in your story and trust that God is loving them through it. 

Karen Ehman is a New York Times bestselling author, a Proverbs 31 Ministries speaker and a contributing writer for Encouragement for Today online devotions and a teacher in the First 5 Bible study app which has over 2 million daily users. She has written 19 books and Bible studies including Keep It Shut: What to Say, How to Say It, and When to Say Nothing at All and the 2020 ECPA devotional book of the year Settle My Soul: 100 Quiet Moments to Meet with Jesus.
She is a Cum Laude graduate of Spring Arbor University with a major in Social Science. Karen has been featured on TODAY Parenting, Redbook.com, Foxnews.com, Crosswalk.com, YouVersion.com, and is a monthly columnist for HomeLife Magazine. Her passion is to help women live their priorities as they reflect the gospel to a watching world. She is married to her college sweetheart, Todd, and is the mother of six children—three biological and three in-laws by marriage—although she forgets which ones are which. Karen enjoys collecting vintage Pyrex kitchenware, cheering for the Detroit Tigers, and spending her days feeding the many people who gather around her mid-century dining table to process life and enjoy her county fair blue-ribbon winning cooking.


About the She Surrenders Podcast:

On the She Surrenders podcast we are talking about women, faith and addiction all on the same platform. There are many podcasts for women and sobriety, but very few for women seeking information and stories from others about faith-based recovery.

Help us reach more listeners: like, subscribe, review, and share.

Find us on Instagram @shesurrenders_sherry, on Facebook @shesurrenderssherry, and online at www.shesurrenders.com.

Sherry:

Welcome back to the she Surrenders podcast. My name is Sherry and my goal for this podcast is to bring you the good news that faith-based recovery works, and it is where you will find the joy in life that you did not think was possible while you were still in the bondage of addiction. The stories you will hear from the women, and sometimes men, of those that have walked in your shoes or alongside someone who has will inspire you to pursue the freedom they have found. That comes from surrendering not only our addictions but also our guilt and our shame to God. Matthew 19, verse 26, tells us that Jesus said with man this is impossible, but with God all things are possible. I pray you hear something today that brings you to a new understanding that this is true for you too, because it is Now on to our guest hey there, I feel like I need to apologize here.

Sherry:

The she Surrenders podcast has gone silent these past few months and I definitely didn't plan for that to happen. But life right. There's just a lot going on in our work with she Surrenders, the book release and Sailor House Recovery, and for all those things you should start seeing some updates very soon. But I want to move on to our guests today because we have Karen Eamon with us. I met Karen when I won a spot in a Proverbs 31 writing competition and a ton of us were assigned to work with New York Times bestselling author Karen Eamon. I learned so much from Karen and the Proverbs 31 team in those 10 weeks Fast forward.

Sherry:

When the first edition of SoberCycle was released, she said some very kind words on social media about the book and talked about being the child of an alcoholic, so I made a note to ask her if she would be a guest here. She is a busy lady, but I am so grateful she took the time to talk with me and share her story here. She also took the time to endorse my new book, the Revised Second Edition of SoberCycle, which will be out on May 1. And I am incredibly honored Her words are on the cover with mine.

Sherry:

Speaking of books, she is an amazing writer and I encourage you to add them to your reading list. There is more about her and her books in the podcast description, so be sure to check that out. You are going to learn so much from the conversation we had, so sit back, listen and learn from someone who has walked the same path as so many of us. So welcome Karen. I am so grateful that you are here and willing to share your story with our listeners today, and that's what I'm going to ask you to do if you just want to start with your story and take it from there.

Karen:

Of course. Well, thank you so much for having me, sherry. It's fun to hang out with you today. My story is that I was raised in a single parent home. Beginning in the second grade, I never knew that my parents were having any kind of trouble and all of a sudden, one night, in the middle of the night, I heard my dad hitting my mom and yelling at her and talking in a voice that I didn't really recognize. And the next morning he had his suitcase packed and he kneeled down and told my brother and I that I still want to be your dad, I just can't be married to your mom anymore. And he left, and that started about three years of back and forth of him coming back and my mom forgiving him for his drinking, and he was also having multiple affairs, woman after woman, and then finally, in the fifth grade, their divorce became final. But he still was part of our lives because we were living in the house that he owned, and so he would come over, often drunk, and sometimes he would come completely sober.

Karen:

I used to say it was like Dr Jacqueline, mr Hyde, I never knew which dad was going to show up. He was violent, mostly toward my mom and my brother. But one time he did physically abuse me and he would just be out of control, not like, not even sounding like my dad, just like that voice. I heard that very first night. But then, when he was sober, he would show up so apologetic, crying his eyes out, begging for a forgiveness, swearing he would never take another drink again and he would never lay a hand on us and saying he was sorry. And that went on and on and on and on until I was in the 12th grade and my dad he was a caterer and owned a restaurant and I don't know how he could do his job, but he would do his job, sometimes completely drunk. I would, I worked for him, I was a waitress, and I would sometimes find him in his office just slumped over his desk with a cigarette burning in one hand and a drink in the other hand, and I would sniff out his cigarette and I'd pour out his drink, and I don't know how he functions. But one night he catered a party on a Saturday night, drunk as could be, and then he went home to his apartment and he fell and he broke his back and he was not found until Monday morning when he didn't shop for work, so they call the ambulance. He went into the hospital for his broken back but he also entered an addiction recovery program and that was the last time he had a drink and he never drank again for 37 years, until the day that he died.

Karen:

And he I like to tell the end of the story because he eventually apologized to my brother, my mom and myself and everybody he'd ever wronged. He was looking at people that he had done wrong in business, that he had cheated, and he looked up all the men of the women he'd had affairs with the husbands and apologized to them and made amends with them In the last 20 years of his life. He was a wonderful, godly Christian man and my kids never knew him as anything other than a wonderful grandpa.

Karen:

But my childhood was really rough and mostly just because of the unknown, never knowing is he gonna show up, is he not gonna show up? And I can't even remember being out in the neighborhood at the house behind us, our yards backed up to each other. That's where all the neighborhood kids would play kickball and I remember always wanting to play in right field because I could still see my driveway really well from right field and I could tell if my dad drove up or not, because if he drove up I had to go home because I never knew if he was gonna be drunk and want to hit my mom or push her down the stairs or a lot of the different things he did to her. And so it just really affected me in that at second grade I had to become a parent to my mom. I had to protect her physically, protect her reputation. She didn't want me talking to anybody about it, she wanted anybody to know. And I just had to grow up really, really fast because of my dad's alcoholism.

Sherry:

Yeah, and you hear that so often from children or anyone raised in an alcoholic home that sense of childhood, that freedom that you're supposed to have, there's always this fear or this alert system, Like you've gotta be ready at all times for anything to happen, because life changes on a dime. And I think the hardest part of that and I'm a child of divorce as well is that when my kids read my book, one of them said the biggest realization for them is that there's a backstory going on in your parents' life. And this speaks to every kid, no matter if there's a problem at home or not. But every parent, all your parents, have a backstory that children have no idea what's going on. And it struck me because, as you're talking, I'm thinking, unfortunately you do know the backstory while you're growing up and that's really hard because it totally takes away your childhood.

Karen:

It does. It does, in fact. About a little over a year ago one of my husband's high school friends was struggling in his last few months of life with cancer and a bunch of people from his high school class were jumping on his Caring Bridge page and just reminiscing about the old days. And I was reading through the comments and so many of them said oh, remember back when we were in the fifth grade and we didn't have a care in the world. Remember how we just used to do what we wanted. We'd go play until the street lights came on, and all those were the days not to have a care in the world.

Karen:

And I remember reading those comments and going I don't know what that's like. I can't ever remember a time where I felt carefree and was not worried about anything. It didn't have to take care of anybody. I went right from being a second grader taking care of my mom into being married and having kids and taking care of them and then taking care of my parents in their latter years that all four of them have just recently passed away in the last three years. And I just looked at those comments and I thought I don't know what that's like. I don't remember ever feeling like a carefree child that had no worries in the world. I just don't even know what that's like.

Sherry:

Right and that carries into adulthood right, like your always caregiver, and even your books a lot of your books I'm thinking about are about how to take better care of other people, you know. So did anybody ever pick up on that Like? Was that Like in your friendships, or did you have to pick and choose? Like who you brought home? Were you scared to bring friends home, or I wasn't allowed to bring anyone home.

Karen:

I never had a slumber party. I never had a friend spend the night. I wasn't even allowed to let the neighborhood kids into our house. They could play in our yard, but they couldn't come in the house. If they needed to use the bathroom, they had to go home.

Karen:

My mom didn't want anybody to know what was going on, and we had just built a house, and about a year and a half after that was when my dad's first affair was found out and he left, and so my mom was still doing things inside the house. We had old furniture in the living room that she had wanted to replace when they moved, but they couldn't afford it right away, and so she was embarrassed that we didn't have nice stuff like everybody else in the neighborhood in their brand new houses and their intact families and two incomes, and it was just really kind of a big secret I had to keep, and so it made me it really actually made me be tempted to just lie, because I knew I didn't want to disappoint my mom, so I had to keep up this. She would tell me to tell people the dad was traveling for work. Well, he owned a restaurant and catering service. He didn't travel for work. And what it really did to me, sherry, was it made me a big people pleaser because I knew I had to keep my dad happy or he might hit me and I didn't want to make him mad.

Karen:

But I didn't want to make my mom sad because she had her white picket dreams dashed. I mean, all she ever wanted to do was be a wife and a mom and involved in the church and the PTA at school, and that's all she ever wanted to do. And it was all taken away from her. When he left she did not own a car, nor did she have a driver's license. She had been in driver's training when she was 16 and a car hit her was not her fault, but she was in a bad accident and so she quit driver's ed. She never drove, so he left her with nothing and she had to figure out how to learn how to drive a car, how to buy a car, you know, and how to just pull herself up by the bootstrap. So I didn't want to make her sad and I didn't want to make my dad mad, so I just learned it was like my responsibility to make sure I managed everybody's emotions and that nobody was disappointed or angry.

Sherry:

And that's so much for a kid. And I mean you think that everything you know as kids, you know you're here too, like, whether it's divorce or addiction or both, that children just think something has to be their fault. Like if you spark a fight or if there is, you know, something happens in the home, something dramatic especially, or physical, you must have something to do with it. You can not even be there and you figure you must have done something. Like there's always this feeling of guilt or shame and none of it is positive. So how did that carry into when you were dating your future husband and what you wanted marriage to look like?

Karen:

Did you have any.

Karen:

Well, luckily I had a wonderful mentor who first reached out to me as a lonely teenager living with my mom who was working to put food on the table, and my brother who was working two jobs after school. He was a paper boy and he worked at an auto parts store to try to help my mom put food on the table. And this woman, who was a pastor's wife, lived across the street from us. The church was kind of kitty corner from us and they just moved in and she saw me out in the yard, quirk, pathetic me, throwing a softball up to myself because there was nobody to play catch with and she invited me to join the church softball team and it was through her that I learned about Jesus and became a Christian.

Karen:

And she was very wise in telling me when it came to my husband and dating, even before I met my husband, my husband was like I would sweetheart.

Karen:

But even in like late high school she said you are gonna need to be very intentional to pick somebody opposite of your dad, otherwise you're gonna be drawn to and gravitate towards men that are just like your dad and then you're gonna find yourself trapped in the same situation that your mom was, which my mom had gravitated toward someone who was just like her dad.

Karen:

Her father was an alcoholic who abused the family, who they caught one time pouring kerosene around the house because he was gonna burn the house down with my mom and her siblings and her mother in it, and my mom ended up marrying someone just like her dad. And I remember thinking, wow, kind of the personality types I do kind of like and guys aren't just like my dad. So I started to think about that and I very intentionally married someone completely opposite of my dad and it was actually sweet to watch their relationship. My boyfriend slash fiance, slash husband came into my life right around the time that my dad got sober, so he doesn't really remember the violent, angry dad I mean, he only saw it a little bit of it and so my dad and my husband actually ended up having a really sweet relationship. They were very close, but they're very different Well.

Sherry:

I can't help but think that woman across the street from you was an angel, because the direction that she gave you is invaluable. Yeah, I mean a lot of. That's why the generational son of addiction just keeps repeating itself. Because we're in this cycle that we don't know how to get out of, because, especially as children growing up, we don't know any different. Right, I think, about the alcoholism in my family. I think the biggest problem was is it wasn't talked about very much. Oh no, yeah, yeah, you know, and my mom you know my mom I was just going to say.

Karen:

My mom used to constantly say this phrase I don't like, I don't want other people to know my problems. I don't want other people to know my problems. So she wouldn't talk about it and she forbid me from talking about it. Like if she found out that I talked to that pastor's wife across the street that led me into the Lord, or if I'd mentioned something to my high school counselor or whatever. She got furious with me and she said I don't like other people knowing my problems. And I'm like okay, that's your problems, but what about my problem? I'm like I'm having a problem with this.

Karen:

And she said well, no, then they'll know my problems If you tell them that your dad and I are divorced and I'm like I think people kind of know by now, you know, but she just wanted to just keep up this, this facade, and to put up walls and just go on with life. And her own sister did not know anything until my mom. So that it from second grade to fifth grade is how long it took until the divorce is final, because he kept coming back. But in fifth grade, when my the divorce is finally final, on my birthday in fifth grade, my mom called her sister, my aunt, and let her know I just wanted to tell you that Pat and I are divorced. And my aunt said what I didn't even know.

Karen:

You were having trouble. She had no idea, no idea for three years that this was going on. And all of a sudden my mom like couldn't hide it anymore because it was final, it was in the paper and she was so embarrassed that people were going to read the paper and see that there had been a divorce decree granted, she just really did not want people knowing her troubles, which was hard for me because then that made me have to pretend like I didn't have any troubles. But I was really struggling with it and I never did talk to anybody about it until I got to college.

Sherry:

Wow, that voice of shame is so strong. I think it's still strong, I mean. I think we're more encouraged to talk about it now and I don't think it's more maybe not more accepted, but you can find more of a like-minded people, like finding my community as far as Christian women in addiction or adult children of alcoholics. There's more resources, it's more talked about in the family. But I agree, Back then nobody was talking about it. I remember, like with my parents, the concessory, like the elders, came over and I thought we were going to be kicked out of church. I thought I was going to be kicked out of church and how was I going to explain that? You know, and it's terrifying and you don't, as a kid, want to ask questions because you're going to rock the boat even more. And, yeah, what a confusing time. So was the facade like your mom's sister didn't know Were holidays and all that kind of thing celebrated and just fake.

Karen:

Like did he go with that kind of stuff? Yeah, he did.

Sherry:

Wow, did you like that, that he was able to do that, or was it even harder?

Karen:

It depended on which dad showed up if he was sober, if he was drunk, if he was drunk now, I remember one time him showing up to my Christmas concert at church when I was probably in the third or fourth grade, and he was drunk as could be, and I remember thinking I just wish he weren't here, and then I could just lie and tell everybody he was sick, you know, or whatever. But if he wasn't drinking he was delightful. Everybody loved him. He was the life of the party. He was super fun, super encouraging, wonderful to be around. It's just. I used to call it the monster in the bottle, like when he would drink that bottle. He became a completely different person. That person I didn't want to show it up.

Sherry:

Right. And when the good guy showed up, did it ever get your hopes up? As a kid, that.

Karen:

Yeah, yeah, over and over again. How about your mom? Did she have hope? Oh yeah, she had hope, up until he married my stepmom, that they would get back together. But even after he stopped drinking, he, we were both my brother and I, were both out of high school and he just, he wanted to start all over again with a new life, new wife. But my mom kept hoping.

Sherry:

Yeah.

Karen:

Yeah.

Sherry:

And it's so. It's painful, but it's sadly. I think it's true of many families that go through this, and so in your family. So you've married someone that's not like your dad and you have a beautiful family, which I've seen on your social media, and some grandchildren, and what do you talk to your kids about when it comes to addiction and the family?

Karen:

Well, you know, for many years my kids didn't know, growing up, anything about grandpa, but then he slowly started telling his story when they were getting to be like preteens and teens. He was so afraid that they would dabble in drinking and that they then might become alcoholics. His father was not an alcoholic, but his father was a pastor who abused and was addicted to prescription drugs. He used to have a cabinet full of all these different drugs, and when a doctor wouldn't prescribe any for him any longer, he would just find a different doctor, you know. And so they were to help him to sleep or to help him to wake up, and so he was kind of addicted to that.

Karen:

My dad, it was alcohol, and so I remember when he started talking to my kids they they were kind of shocked because they didn't. They knew that he didn't have any alcohol in his house and that we didn't have any alcohol in our house, but they didn't know why until he started to tell them. And then he told them to about the abuse. You know that I used to get mad at your grandma and I used to hit your grandma when I was mad at her, I used to hit your uncle and I even think I hit your mom once and I'm so, so sorry and you should just stay away from it. So I kind of stepped out of being the lecturer about alcohol with my teens and preteens because I felt like it was more effective, coming from my dad who really had experience with it a bad experience and could really speak from that experience, a warning that meant something more than just every parent that says you know, don't embarrass the family, don't get you know drunk and get caught by the cops or whatever.

Sherry:

Right. And when you became an you know an adult or 21, not that everybody waits till they're 21 to have a drink, but what was your attitude on that? Like, were you just like? I will never touch it, or I don't want anything to do with it, or it's not a problem?

Karen:

I never tried alcohol under the age of 21, didn't want anything to do with it, didn't want to go to parties, didn't? I just couldn't even stand the smell of it because it made me think of my dad in violence. And it wasn't until I was maybe 22 or 23 that a friend said oh, you should try this wine cooler. It tastes like fruit juice. I took a sip of it but I didn't really like it. But now, as an adult, I like very seldom if I met someone's house and they're having some little fruity cocktails or whatever. Though I have something it doesn't appeal to me, not just because I don't really like the taste of it, but especially like the smell of certain alcohols. He used to drink beer a lot and he used to mix vodka with orange juice. I was wondering why, when I would sneak some orange not sneak, but I would drink some orange juice from his house it tasted funny.

Karen:

And I realized he had it mixed up and I thought why does he not have it in the carton it comes in from the store? Why does he have it in this big glass bottle? And it tastes funny.

Sherry:

But now I know all of it was spiked you were having screwdrivers for breakfast.

Karen:

I was, so I guess I did try alcohol before I was 21 when I took a sip of water. But it just didn't really appeal to me and none of my kids have struggled with it. One barely drinks Well, two really barely drink. One likes wine here and there, but usually doesn't even finish their glass. So thankfully I haven't seen that in my own kids.

Karen:

No, big red flags no, and I do think that their grandpa telling what his inability to properly handle alcohol did to him and his family, I think that did really make them think about it.

Sherry:

Yeah, wow. Well, I'm happy to hear that, because it sounds like the buck stops here in your family, so that's wonderful. So you said you became a Christian when you were in high school with your neighbor, your dad. It was through his recovery process. What about your? Because it doesn't sound like the church was part of your home growing up.

Karen:

Right, so no, your brother, my mom was a Christian and it had been since she was in the eighth grade. But what was a really sad part of this whole thing was we went to a pretty legalistic I won't mention the denomination church when we were growing up. My dad was a usher at the church and when he decided to divorce my mom, my mom was told she could no longer attend church and bring her kids there because she was going to be a divorced woman. So she, when I was in probably third grade, she just quit going to church and we quit going to church, and it wasn't until that pastor's wife and her family moved into the church cross street, which was not the church we went to. We drove across town to a different church that had us, you know, no longer welcome.

Karen:

It wasn't until I was in the ninth grade and that woman took me under her wing that I started to go to church on my own and then invited my mom and she would come. She had to work every other Sunday. She worked in a hospital and food service and so she couldn't always come, but she would come occasionally with me. My brother didn't go at all, but that church was so loving and so welcoming and so instrumental in helping me learn what it meant to be spiritually and emotionally healthy person, but I still couldn't, didn't feel the freedom to talk about what was going on. I did a little bit with the pastor's wife, but I was always afraid Somehow it would get back to my mom and I'd get in trouble.

Sherry:

Yeah, well, did you when you were, you know, when you did accept Jesus and started going back to church and are going to church, I should say did you feel, though, like a little bit more or more comfort, because now you could talk to God? Yes, yeah, absolutely. I could talk to God all the time, like it was TC's type of thing. Yeah, absolutely, wow. So well, I'm glad your story had a happy ending and that you got to have, you know, that time with your dad, while he was here, to see what God can do in someone's life on the other side, but also in sharing your story, the power of what a liquid in a bottle that you can walk into any store and buy has the power to destroy everything, and the family unit being the most destructive part of it. So is there any scripture or verse that you consider your life verse or that you'd like to share?

Karen:

I don't really have a life verse but I have different like topical verses and different things in my life and for this topic that we're talking about today, I love Psalm 68, 5 and 6. It says this a father to the fatherless, a defender of widows, is God in his holy dwelling. He sets the lonely in families. And I just think of that. He was the father to me when I felt like I was fatherless because my dad was absent. He was the defender of my mom, who kind of was a widow. She was left without a husband. And as far as the last part of that when it says that he sets the lonely in families, that's exactly what he did with me and the woman who lived across the street, ms Pat. She welcomed me into her family. I would take my homework there when I got home from school and I would do homework while she folded laundry and she talked to me about what it meant to be a Christian and how to grow as a Christian and I really felt welcomed and wanted when I was at her house.

Karen:

And now I feel like it's kind of a full circle moment. That's what has ended up happening with me and my husband, with so many teenagers who were children or friends of our children who were going through their parents' marriages ending in divorce. I could look them in the eye and say I know how you feel and you are welcome in my home and I'm going to. You know, take you in when you're feeling lonely. And it really was a place of pain that brought about purpose and ministry.

Karen:

I like to call it going and finding your old self. You know, go find who you once were and do something to help lighten their load or help encourage them. And it's just a neat way to watch God work and use the things that you think are bad and awful. There can still be beauty in them when you use, you know, when you drop on that pain to need somebody else in their pain and comfort them. The Bible says that we comfort others with the comfort we ourselves have received from God. I can't remember exactly the reference. I think it's in Corinthians, one of the Corinthians but I've totally seen that happen.

Sherry:

And I love that verse that you shared. I got all teary because it was just so, so pertinent. It was so perfect for what you were talking about and also to go find your former self. I love that and we do. I mean, no matter what your struggle is or what your pain is, you have the ability to look at someone and have that sixth sense of I know what you're going through and I can imagine your home was. Your door was wide open. There was no. There was a welcome to add out.

Karen:

Oh yeah, door wide open. I wanted our house to be the hangout place. Door wide open, grocery bill sky high. But hey, that's how it is when you have a bunch of teenagers up there.

Sherry:

That's right. That's right. No, that's wonderful. Well, thank you, karen. I think your story is heartfelt, not honest, but also inspiring, and someone listening to this if that was their story or is their story it's going to see how beauty from beauty from ashes can come from something like this, and also about restoration. You know so much of that happened in your family and it's hard to see at the time. You know, when you're going through it, that there can ever be any freedom from this game. But God right.

Sherry:

So, yeah, well, thank you for being here today, karen. I really appreciate you taking the time out of your busy schedule, and I will have links to all of Karen's information and her books and what she's up to in the show notes. So thank you again, karen, for being here today. Well, thanks for having me. Thank you, and we will see you here next week on the she Surrenders podcast. And if you could take a moment to leave a positive review, no negative ones, please. That is how we get the word out of what's happening when faith meets recovery, and feel free to subscribe when you're there too. See you next week.