If your sibling is sober, or you’ve finally put those boundaries up, but you still feel on edge, you’re not alone.

Many siblings experience lingering anxiety after addiction—even when life finally feels calm. The chaos may be gone, but your body hasn’t caught up.

In this episode, Shahem McLaurin digs into what happens after the crisis phase ends: why your nervous system stays on high alert, how years of unpredictability create hypervigilance, and why “nothing happening” can feel unsafe. We also explore boundaries, trust, and learning to feel safe again in recovery—at your own pace.

This conversation is for siblings who are tired of waiting for the other shoe to drop and want language for what they’re feeling.

📘Download our FREE, sibling e-book: 6 actions to help navigate a sibling’s substance use journey

🤝Join our FREE and PRIVATE sibling-focused community: Siblings For Love of Recovery

📲Connect with FLOR: Instagram and TikTok

🎙Guest speaker: Shahem Mclaurin

Related content:

• Book: “It Didn’t Start With You” by Mark Wolynn

What does it mean to grieve a parent who is still alive—but was never able to show up the way you needed?

In this episode, Marci Hopkins shares how childhood abuse, emotional neglect, and a parent’s addiction quietly shaped her relationship with alcohol—and how drinking became a way to survive grief she didn’t yet have language for.

For years, Marci’s drinking didn’t look extreme or chaotic. It looked normal. It looked functional. It looked like coping.

As many people enter Dry January questioning their own relationship with alcohol, this conversation offers a deeper lens—one that moves beyond willpower or labels and into the emotional roots of why we drink.

We talk about:

• How alcohol can become a socially acceptable way to numb unresolved trauma
• Grieving the parent you needed, not just the one you had
• Why addiction often masks deeper grief and unmet childhood needs
• Letting go of the hope that someone will one day become who you needed them to be
• Finding peace and sobriety without the closure you thought you’d need
  

This episode is for anyone who has loved someone struggling with addiction, questioned their own drinking, or felt the quiet, complicated grief of losing someone—while they’re still alive.

📘Download our FREE, sibling e-book: 6 actions to help navigate a sibling’s substance use journey

🤝Join our FREE and PRIVATE sibling-focused community: Siblings For Love of Recovery

📲Connect with FLOR: Instagram and TikTok

🎙Guest speaker: Marci Hopkins

Related content:

• Marci’s book: “Chaos to Clarity: Seeing the Signs and Breaking the Cycles”

• Family resources: Shatterproof

• Find a family group: Al-Anon Family Groups

What if everything you’ve been taught about recovery is wrong?

What if the thing your family fears —medication—might actually be the one thing that could help save your loved one’s life?

You might recognize names like methadone, suboxone, sublocade, buprenorphine, and others.

In this episode, we strip away the sugarcoating and talk honestly about how these work, and what exactly medically assisted treatment (MAT) is: what it does, why it works, and why so many families still judge it. We dig into the hard truths—how detox alone sets people up to fail, how shame keeps loved ones stuck, and how MAT creates the chemical stability that recovery literally cannot happen without.

We confront the biggest stigma head-on: “Isn’t this just swapping one drug for another?” And we break down, in real language, why that belief is not only outdated—but dangerous.

If you’re a sibling or family member watching someone you love fight addiction, this episode gives you the clarity you’ve been craving and the honesty you deserve.

You’ll walk away with:

• The real science behind MAT and why it stabilizes the brain when nothing else does
• A blunt breakdown of the biggest stigmas, including why the “one drug for another” myth does more harm than good
• What recovery actually requires beyond detox, tough love, or willpower
• Clear ways to support your loved one without shame, judgment, or outdated beliefs

📘Download our FREE, sibling e-book: 6 actions to help navigate a sibling’s substance use journey

🤝Join our FREE and PRIVATE sibling-focused community: Siblings For Love of Recovery

📲Connect with FLOR: Instagram and TikTok

🎙Guest speaker: Dr. Sarah Nasir, DO

Related content:

• Watch her break down “Opioid Addiction & 3 Phases of Treatment”
• Download the Opioid Recovery Guide