Episode Summary

In this powerful conversation, host KL Wells sits down with Paul Simard, a death doula, TED Talk speaker, and men’s wellness coach, to explore how our relationship with grief, loss, and mortality shapes the way we love. Drawing from his personal journey through crisis and transformation, Paul shares how facing life’s hardest realities can open the door to deeper compassion, connection, and meaning.

Together, KL and Paul discuss how loving someone in addiction often brings families into an ongoing experience of grief, uncertainty, and emotional complexity. This episode offers a thoughtful reframing of grief as an extension of love, explores the role of shame and isolation, and invites listeners to consider new ways of holding both loss and hope at the same time.

Key Discussion Points

1. Paul’s personal journey and how life challenges led him into service work
2. Reframing death as a natural and meaningful part of life’s cycle
3. Understanding grief as an expression of ongoing love
4. How loving someone in addiction can mirror the emotional experience of grief
5. The difference between shame and guilt, and how shame fuels isolation
6. Why connection and community are essential for healing
7. Rethinking sovereignty as interdependence rather than independence
8. The emotional impact of the language we use around death and loss
9. Cultural perspectives on honoring life and death
10. How personal stories and beliefs shape our experience of suffering

Some Questions I Ask

1. How did your personal experiences lead you into this work?
2. What does it mean to show up as a father, partner, and man today?
3. How can we develop a healthier relationship with death and loss?
4. How do we love someone whose addiction creates constant uncertainty?
5. Where do our stories about shame come from, and how do they affect us?
6. How do we know if the beliefs we’re holding are helping or hurting us?
7. What might be possible if we questioned the narratives we’ve inherited?
8. How can we hold both grief and gratitude at the same time?

In This Episode, You Will Learn

1. How reframing grief and loss can shift your emotional experience
2. Why grief is often a continuation of love rather than the end of connection
3. The role of community and connection in...

In this episode, podcast producer Steve Cary joins host KL Wells for an honest and reflective conversation about what it means to thrive while loving someone in active addiction. KL shares lessons from her 20-year journey with her son Sam, including his nearly three years of sustained recovery. Together, they explore the perspective that shaped KL’s healing path: the belief that life is happening for you, not to you.

KL discusses how loving with boundaries helped her reclaim her own agency and emotional stability. She reflects on why feeling like nothing is working often signals that families are trying to manage addiction itself rather than focusing on outcomes that support their own well-being. This conversation offers grounded insight into fear, uncertainty, relapse, and the personal growth that can happen alongside a loved one’s recovery journey.

1. Reframing hardship through the perspective that life is happening for you, not to you
2. The difference between loving with boundaries and rescuing or enabling
3. Brain science and addiction survival wiring and how it shapes behavior
4. Why feeling like nothing is working may signal you are trying to control addiction rather than your own healing
5. Setting clear personal boundaries, including removing financial or rescue-based support
6. Self-care as a survival skill, including emotional processing, tapping, movement, and time in nature
7. Managing fear and internal stories during periods of silence in recovery
8. Viewing relapse as part of a longer learning process rather than a single failure
9. Shifting from focusing on a loved one’s outcomes to identifying your own

1. Where were you in your journey when you were able to respond with boundaries instead of rescuing?
2. For listeners who feel nothing is working, how can they begin to see a path forward?
3. Was there something different about your son’s most recent turn toward recovery?
4. What are a few early steps for someone who feels overwhelmed, stuck, or afraid?

1. Why the feeling that nothing is working can signal you are focused on the wrong battle
2. How loving boundaries can support both compassion and self-protection
3. How shifting focus toward your own outcomes can create emotional stability
4. Early support steps that many families find helpful, including peer support and learning from others’ experiences
5. Why addiction can disrupt survival priorities in the brain and create unpredictable behavior

Episode Summary

In Part 2 of this compassionate conversation, host KL Wells continues her dialogue with Denise Frenette on what it truly means to heal while loving someone with addiction. Together, they explore how forgiveness, boundaries, and emotional honesty can exist without minimizing harm or excusing destructive behavior.

Denise reflects on her own journey of reconciling love for her father with the reality of his addiction. She shares how releasing judgment, challenging secrecy, and choosing understanding over blame can help interrupt generational patterns of shame and inherited trauma. This episode centers the healing of the loved one, not as abandonment, but as a necessary step toward truth, freedom, and peace.

Key Discussion Points

1. Holding love and truth at the same time when addiction has caused real harm
2. What forgiveness is and what it is not
3. Moving through anger, sadness, and grief without getting stuck in them
4. Reframing harm through the lens of “nothing is personal”
5. Choosing moments of joy while a loved one continues to struggle
6. Why boundaries are essential to healing, including stepping back when needed
7. How secrecy and silence reinforce shame across generations
8. Telling the whole truth as a form of honoring, not betrayal

Some Questions I Ask

1. How can I love my father and still say, “This was wrong”?
2. What does forgiveness really mean, and what are the most common misconceptions about it?
3. How do we stop taking addictive behavior personally?
4. Is it possible to experience joy while someone we love is suffering?
5. When are boundaries necessary for healing, even if they feel painful?
6. How do we move from anger to understanding without excusing harm?
7. Why does humanizing the person who hurt us help set us free?
8. How do we hold the full truth of our family story without rewriting it?

In This Episode, You Will Learn

1. Why healing yourself is not abandonment, but responsibility
2. How forgiveness can free you without minimizing harm
3. Why emotions are a pathway rather than a destination
4. How boundaries support compassion rather than weaken it
5. Ways to challenge inherited shame without rewriting history
6. How honesty can...