The most painful rock bottoms don't come from a relationship with a substance. They come from a relationship with a person.

David Deane Haskel is an author of several fiction books, with his most recent being the memoir Wounded Angels. After losing his mother to suicide at the age of four, he spent the rest of his childhood navigating chaos at home and at school, while never feeling like he fit in. After finally finding sobriety, it was a codependent relationship that took him to new depths of pain and allowed him to embark on a journey to heal his unresolved trauma.

✨ What this episode explores

▪️ Hitting a Codependency Bottom — Why a codependent relationship hijacks the nervous system like a substance

▪️ Why Trauma Surfaces in Sobriety — Why most addictions function as a way to regulate unresolved trauma, and why removing the substance forces that trauma to the surface.

▪️ The Narcissistic Discard — Why a sudden, unilateral cutoff by someone you trusted reactivates the original abandonment wound in ways no other rupture can.

▪️ The Unique Attachment Wound of Losing a Parent in Childhood — How losing a parent to death or childhood in childhood creates an imprint no other loss does

▪️ The Repetition Compulsion of the Scapegoat — How scapegoats keep recreating the family system they grew up in by choosing partners who avoid accountability.

▪️ The Childhood Origins of Shame Attacks — How a single moment of overwhelming shame can lock the body into the same response for decades.

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🎧 If this episode resonated, you might also love:

▪️ 201: Trauma-Bonded No More — My Journey Through Shame, Regression & Finding My Way Back

▪️Ep 56 — The Truth About Codependency: It’s Not Empathy, It’s Survival w/ Dr. Sarah Michaud

▪️Ep 158 - Stop People-Pleasing & Find Your Power w/ Hailey Magee

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