Today, Carol the Coach interviews Kirsten D. Samuel, Coach, Author, and Speaker who wants to inspire woman to know that they can survive the devestation that has caused them. She explains that after 25 years of marriage, my husband revealed his addiction. He was caught looking at inappropriate images at work. Like most women who face this discovery, I immediately went into shock and disbelief followed quickly by anger and panic. I wondered what was wrong with me, became overwhelmed by a sense of failure, and felt like I couldn’t breathe. I didn’t believe in divorce but didn’t know how I could live with this man I no longer trusted. The journey to recovery was long, painful, and life changing. End of the story (my favorite part): I have a brand-new marriage with the same man. I want women who face a similar discovery to know that addiction doesn’t have to be fatal to their marriage. However, changes must happen within the relationship and within yourself to move beyond this betrayal and build a healthy relationship. Listen as Kristen shares the keys to regaining her life again!  

Eddie Capparucci and his colleagues Heather Cronemiller and Lacy Alajna Bentley have collaborated on a book for women struggling with sex, love, and addiction. Going Deeper for Women: How the Inner Child Impacts Your Love and Sex Addiction is based on Eddie Capparuci's Inner Child Model for treating sex/ addiction. This Inner Child Model has been helpful to many men over the past 4 years and now the authors have specifically formulated it for women!

Today Carol the Coach will be talking to Josh and Charlene Lewis who are co-founders of programing for both the partner and the addict that have foundations in the works of Patrick Carnes.They have an intensive that is remote and they believe in making it easy for their clients. On this podcast they will be sharing their own hope, strength and wisdom that built their programing to get you the right tools to manage recovery and betrayal.

Today Carol the Coach is interviewing Dr. David Fawcett who has written a new book called Under the Influence about the deadly effect that substances have in combination withcompulsive problematic sexual behaviors. When sex and drugs are combined repeatedly and compulsively, there is a high risk of developing what Dr. David Fawcett calls sexualized drug use. This condition is also referred to as paired substance and sex addiction or addiction interaction disorder. Unfortunately, the response from the professional community to sexualized drug use has been far from adequate. As Dr. Fawcett writes, “I have had countless clients come to me who have gone through well-known and otherwise exceptional drug addiction treatment programs that never addressed co-occurring behavioral addictions, most notably sex and addiction. Because of that shortcoming, those clients found themselves still struggling with sobriety and life in general. This book is intended to be a guide for individuals curious about their own sexualized drug use or the sexualized drug use of someone they care about, and for professional seeking more clinical information. The information contained herein provides insight, guidance, and relief to people struggling to break free from sexualized drug use, steering them toward affirming and satisfying sex and intimacy without the need for a mood-altering substances and behaviors.   Questions:

Today, Carol the Coach will be interviewing Amie Woolsey who has created a program for women who have experienced sexual betrayal and have decided to divorce to and move on to their next chapter. She teaches about the three pillars - Awareness, Acceptance, and Agency - when applied to a partner's healing journey, to enable empowerment and choice. She has offered a free workbook to get you thingking and to remember. that you have choices. She tells her partners, "Whether you're in the "Should I stay or go" mindset or the "What the heck do I do next?" mindset, this workbook is crafted to meet you where you are and provide clarity on the most crucial aspect of any decision-making proces. She believes, your mindset is the single most important part of any decision because you are the CHOOSER in your life. This workbook serves as your trusty guide, allowing you to explore your thoughts and feelings in the safety of your own space, at your own pace. When someone in your life has made choices that stripped away your own power to choose, reclaiming that power and becoming the CHOOSER is absolutely critical. Decisions made from a place of empowerment have the amazing ability to erase the paralyzing fear of making the wrong choice. If you go to Amie's website, you can print off as many copies of her workbook as you need to fuel your curiosity. Listen as she describes her program to support partners in any way she can.

Today, Carol the Coach is interviewing Sam Louie who authored Passport to Shame From Asian Immigrant to American Addict. Sam explains that "Asian cultures are rooted in shame. They are known as shame-based societies because the lives, families, and mindsets of these cultures revolve around some aspect of avoiding shame to preserve familial and cultural honor. In Chinese culture alone, there are more than 100 different ways to describe shame. While some of them overlap with English versions of shame, such as a sense of disgrace and humiliation, many others help shed light on why and how shame is so pertinent among Asian cultures. Within the Chinese, some of the shame-related terms and references are: a nation’s humiliation/shame (i.e. bringing shame to yourself also brings shame to your family, ancestors, and community and your entire ethnic background and/or family’s country of origin); the old father-in-law carries the young daughter-in-law on his back to cross a river (in Chinese culture, it is considered inappropriate for a father-in-law to have physical contact with his daughter-in-law, thus equating how taboo it is to be associated with shame); and a person lives by face as much as a tree lives by bark and as much as a light bulb is covered with glass (i.e. stressing the importance of maintaining a positive and good-standing public image)." Listen as they discuss Asian culture and and how it is so deeply rooted in shame and why.

Today Carol the Coach will be interviewing Janice Caudill and Dan Drake, who created his and hers, step-by-step, companion workbooks for helping couples prepare for, complete and heal after a full disclosure process. Since the books came out they are now training  professionals to navigate these difficult waters with their clients, helping them to understand the infrastructure that underlies the Restoring Truth Model so that the disclosure can become the starting point for cultivating safety, trust, vulnerability and, ultimately, authenticintimacy for individual and relationship healing.

When betrayal has occurred, it's natural for couples to seek out marriage counseling in a desperate attempt to repair the relationship, only to be frustrated because he doesn’t know how to show empathy for the pain the betrayal he has caused her and she doesn’t know how to feel safe with someone who violated her trust so deeply. Today, Carol the Coach is interviewing Sherri Courtney and Laura Fisher who offers couples a solution that bridges the gap between the discovery of betrayal and couples counseling. Sherri and Laura have integrated the principles from Help Her Heal, Unleashing Your Power and Help Them Heal into their Help Them Heal for Couples Signature Program, which offers a comprehensive Early Recovery Couples Empathy Model (ERCEM) based approach to healing a relationship when trust has been shattered through sexual betrayal.  They will be offering a Help Them Heal for Couples Workshop in January that will introduce couples to the ERCEM model and help them learn how to progress together through the 3 stages of partner betrayal: Safety and Stabilization; Anger, Grief and Mourning; and Post Traumatic Growth. Sherri and Laura believe having the right help at the right time can make all the difference in relational healing and are committed to helping couples not only survive but thrive following sexual betrayal.   Website: www.helpthemhealworkshop.com Email: [email protected]

Today Carol the Coach will be interviewing Joshua Nichols who has developed 12 Types of Gaslighting and 4 Types of Vulnerability Exploitation to help you both identify these maladaptive coping skills to make healthier choices.

Today Carol the Coach interviews Lisa and Andrew Reichel from Room to Heal. Room to Heal  is a recovery residence in Charlotte, NC for men battling sex and addiction that breaks the mold of traditional sexual addiction recovery by offering men a more affordable option for immersive healing while providing intentional time apart for couples. They have a relationship-centered approach where both individuals receive coaching support while the addict is away and those coaches work as a team to keep the couple connected and safe in the relationship. Another unique aspect of the program is that the support doesn’t end when the addict returns home. Room to Heal will walk beside the couple through that transition and begin using the ERCEM method to process the anger and grief left by the betrayal.  Their goal, like ERCEM is to ultimately help their couples reach deeper levels of intimacy than they ever felt possible. If you are considering a theraputic separation, feel stunted in your recovery as an individual or couple, listen up. This program might be your answer. "The programming includes support for the partner and the relationship through the Early Recovery Couples Empathy Model (ERCEM). Our goal is to help the addict build a rock-solid foundation for his recovery while guiding both individuals to the safety and healing needed to begin rebuilding the relationship."

Today Carol the Coach interviews Tina Wehner President of Hope and Freedom Counseling Services and Intensives. Tina will be explaining how going to a 3 day intensive can benefit the couple as they work at restoring their relationship.She explains that Intensives provide transformational results. She explains that "While we cannot cure sex addiction or heal from it's damage in 3-days we can help you uncover the roots of the spouses  addiction, give the couple tools that include: 1. For the addict-tools for sustainable sobriety 2. For the couple-a roadmap to begin the process of rebuilding trust and healing from trauma. Our intensives allow us to do 6-months of therapy in three days and jumpstart what is needed to start rebuilding trust. She will be explaining how the intensive uncovers the roots of addiction and lays a foundation for trust and safety.