Finding Freedom from Addiction with Rob Lohman

SPEAKER 02 : 0:00

I’m Rachel Maines, and with me today for this Public Affairs is Rob Lohman. Rob, welcome.

SPEAKER 01 : 0:05

Thank you so much. Glad to be here.

SPEAKER 02 : 0:07

You’re doing a lot with the addiction field. You were a recovering addict as well, and I have in my hand right now the addiction intervention. But what I like about it is you have after the I-N-T, E-R. That’s really creative. Why did you decide to do that with this book?

SPEAKER 01 : 0:25

So the Addiction Intervention book is one I wrote just to educate families and just real professionals on how do interventions work. And the ER came probably like five or six years ago. I was just doodling around because I’m a doodler. And it just came that so many people unfortunately end up in the ER because of their addictions. There’s kind of like the heartbeat that goes through the intervention word. Yeah. And it’s preventable. Those are the things. We have this disease of alcoholism and stuff that is actually something that’s preventable with the right tools and to put in front of people. So that’s why I wrote the book, just to educate and point people in the right direction.

SPEAKER 02 : 1:03

Well, I know my listeners, and as well as myself, I’ve had family members and friends who have suffered with addiction. And I’ve been at a loss how to help them because I, myself, I haven’t been challenged with that. So… Here we are today to help those who have family and friends to kind of give them some tips on how we can help our loved ones.

SPEAKER 01 : 1:25

Yeah, it’s funny. Especially coming out of the holidays, you go through all these parties and people are always like, well, what do you do for work? What do you do for work? And that’s like the third question people usually ask. I rarely ever ask people that question because I just want to get to know people, right?

SPEAKER 03 : 1:38

Right.

SPEAKER 01 : 1:39

And when people say, well, what do you do for work? I’ll say, well, before I answer that question, let me ask you this question. Have you yourself ever had a family member or a co-worker that’s ever dealt with addiction like alcoholism or porn or gambling or something? And they’re like, oh, yeah. And people just start rattling people off in their life that have dealt with addiction.

SPEAKER 03 : 1:56

Yeah.

SPEAKER 01 : 1:57

I said, well, that’s what I do. That’s where God’s really called me to do. is help people find freedom from that. Because I’ve been sober since 2001 and God divinely… Congratulations. Oh, yeah. It’s not like sobriety had been easy, but just God divinely freed me from the addiction back then. And it’s been an up and down roller coaster. So… The substances are just covering up the problem, right? There’s really the deeper down pain that something happened as a kid or as an adult or a big loss or just someone just liked alcohol. You don’t know what it is. So there’s not one rhyme or reason why people become addicts. Along the way, something happened, and there’s a pathway out of it, which is what I like to try to help people do is see a pathway out of the hell that they’ve been living in and the chaos, and then we just get them on a different journey. But holidays are crazy for just listening to people, and Uncle Tom shows up or Cousin Billy, and here they are again. It’s like, well, yeah, what do you think changed? It was the same thing last year, and no one has ever spoken up. They just let the family walk on eggshells because of this one individual.

SPEAKER 02 : 3:01

Right. You know, oftentimes, since we don’t know what to do, we often kind of feed their addiction thinking we’re helping. What’s a couple of things that we do as friends or family members that are not helpful?

SPEAKER 01 : 3:13

Yeah. Yeah. Well, families will call me for an intervention and I just kind of listen and I say, well, how is your loved one dependent on you right now in their life? Well, you know, we buy groceries because we want to make sure they eat. Or we’re paying their car insurance because we don’t want them to get in a wreck and then they get sued. So they’re doing all these things logically thinking they’re helping or dropping food off on the front porch. When we do those things or we pay for the cell phone bill or we pay the rent or we pay for the car or car insurance, we are actually depriving our loved one the opportunity to become an adult. To step in like, I want to pay my own rent. And there’s something empowering about paying your own rent. But if mom and dad or a loved one is just paying it, what motivation do I have as an individual to actually step out and say, well, I’ll go get a job then. I don’t need to do that. So the things we do because we love our loved ones make total sense. But on the flip side, it’s actually hurting your loved one and robbing them of the chance to actually grow up and become an adult. Because some are just stuck as a 14, 13. I mean, I started drinking at 14, right? So when I got sober at 29, I was a very immature 29-year-old. But those things like paying bills, it doesn’t actually really help.

SPEAKER 02 : 4:28

Yeah, I know. I’ve watched my loved ones go through that. It’s just tough because you want to help them and you want to protect them. And it just seems like the opposite thing to do if you love somebody, to cut them off, you know. So, you know, we often hear about the rock bottom. Is that different for people now?

SPEAKER 01 : 4:46

So the way I look at the rock bottom is I’m in the business of helping people bring the bottom up to them. So people will call it, again, there’s logical fears or illogical fears of, well, if we say something, they may not ever talk to us again. And then they may go do something and hurt themselves. But if we do an intervention or if we approach them, they might cut us off and really go commit suicide because they’ve been threatening it for a while. And you’re right, all those things could happen. And those are scary moments and the fear that we don’t want our loved one to go further down. But I’ll ask the question. I’ve had family members say, well, we’re just going to wait until they get a DUI. Well, waiting to get a DUI is going to cost them approximately, there’s a news story here in Denver recently, $13,300 is the average cost of a DUI for somebody.

SPEAKER 03 : 5:33

Yeah.

SPEAKER 01 : 5:34

And that’s to handle the mess right now. If you lose your job or you lose your wife or your kids or CPS gets involved, then you have a whole, so why are we going to wait? for the loved one to hit bottom.

SPEAKER 03 : 5:47

Right.

SPEAKER 01 : 5:48

And I’m a visual guy. I think you’re a creative visual person yourself, too. But it’s like, imagine a loved one drowning in the ocean or a lake, and you throw them a life jacket or a life preserver. Are you actually going to wait until their head goes all the way under and be like, well, I think they’re finally ready? Or you notice they’re drowning and you throw them. Now they have a chance to pick up the life preserver or the life-saving device themselves. But you took the step to throw it to them instead of waiting until they actually drowned. You’re like, well, now they definitely can’t grab it. So you really just want to be proactive in a healthy way because – If a mother or father says something to their, say, 20-year-old, 25-year-old, like, honey, you really need to get some help. We’re really scared. They’re not going to listen probably because they’re family. There’s been pain and hurt.

SPEAKER 03 : 6:36

Right.

SPEAKER 01 : 6:37

If a person like myself or someone in recovery says, hey, and they’re going to be like, oh, my gosh, you’re totally right. What do I do? It just depends on the delivery method, the delivery avenue.

SPEAKER 02 : 6:46

Yeah. Yeah. Well, I’ve been talking with Rob Lohman and he has a book here that I have in my hand, The Addiction Intervention. And Rob, you’re going to give this away for free to our listeners. What do they have to do to get it?

SPEAKER 01 : 6:57

One, you’re going to have to take action. If you just go to freerecoverybook.com, you can grab a free copy of the book. I mean, you just pay for shipping and handling, but it’s just a way to… to tap into this knowledge that not only myself but other professionals I interviewed inputted into the book to say, here’s how we help people, and here’s how we’ve seen them get freedom. So, yeah, just go grab a free copy of the book. I’ll mail it to you. I’ll sign it for you. Send it off. As long as you live in the United States of America, I will not be shipping this to Russia or anywhere else. Yeah.

SPEAKER 02 : 7:29

Well, that’s a great resource, and thanks for doing that. That’s – you know, people are just – They don’t know what to do. They don’t know how to help their loved one. And then as Christians too, obviously prayer, but God gives us practical things to do too. Do you run into that too? Well, as a Christian, we’re supposed to help and we’re supposed to pray. And maybe we miss the practical side of the tips that are in this book.

SPEAKER 01 : 7:52

Yes. Like even my own mother, when I was going through my stuff, like I wasn’t, you couldn’t tell my life was in ruins, but my parents just knew I wasn’t operating my full capacity. And so she didn’t know what to do. So she literally just had to turn it over and just pray and just be like, we’re just going to trust God with the process.

SPEAKER 03 : 8:09

Yeah.

SPEAKER 01 : 8:09

And just trust him to reach out to my son to get him to a point. And then when that phone call came, when I called my mom and said, hey, I desperately need help. You know, I didn’t tell him last night I tried to kill myself. Right. But it was I desperately need help. And that started the ball rolling. And that was not hard. They wanted to intervene and help and do what they could. But as Christians, yeah, I mean, some people just feel like, well, just pray for them. And that’s great. But also there is some action that should happen with some people that says, okay, your loved one, they’re in the midst of dying. We need to rally people. Prayer is good, but we need to physically do something to get in front of this person and say, we love you. Please, please accept this gift of help. And it’s kind of for them because then they know they did everything they could to help their loved one, like the life preserver or the life-saving device. And then they have to pick it up and go get the help. But sometimes they just need a little jostling to say, like, it’s like a wake-up call. Everyone knows the cat’s out of the bag. Please, like, we are here to help you. Please, like, here are some options. And I’m all about Christian recovery, like Christian treatment centers, Christian programs. And there’s a lot that say they are that aren’t. So calling a guy like me is a helpful thing to just say, here are the ones that really truly do the work. When they say they use Jesus Christ in the recovery process, they actually do. They’re not just being spiritual and having a faith, which is fine for people. But I’m like, Jesus Christ for me is the pathway to true healing and transformation. Recovery is not meant to be boring and just stopping drinking. Because then we’ve got to deal with life. And I know how people do it, but I don’t know how people do it without Christ.

SPEAKER 02 : 9:46

Right. Yeah, he can definitely do that inner work. He needs to do that inner work in your heart. So with your journey, how did that take place? Because you were raised with a mom and a dad who believed in Christ. Explain briefly how that kind of that transformation happened.

SPEAKER 01 : 10:02

I just say I’m like, you know, wired differently than most kids, I thought. And alcohol was always around in our family, like, you know, settings at the lake house. So it was just there. So there’s this attraction to it.

SPEAKER 03 : 10:12

Right.

SPEAKER 01 : 10:13

And when I drank it, it was kind of like the elixir kicked in. It was like, oh, yeah, give me more of that. Right. And, you know, I got sick, you know, the first couple of times. I’m like, who cared? Like, it just was something I did for 29 years. You know, and then God radically transformed my life one night after attempted suicide and saved my life. And it’s a really cool story when we get into like the slow motion version of the story. Right. But after that, it was just like, I’m all about Jesus. And my life definitely doesn’t reflect that sometimes. Like, I’m not perfect. Ask my wife. And we’ve gone up and down and I get caught in la la land of recovery and And just kind of ADHD brain and just these grand ideas. And I chase them sometimes, you know, and that that still causes pain in my life. But at the core of it is Christ.

SPEAKER 03 : 10:54

Right.

SPEAKER 01 : 10:54

Right. And I can always go back to that when I’m spending more time with him and in the word and just around great men like my life reflects that more. But when I take myself back and just be like, I’m going to do it my way, my life reflects that. So the more and more I focus on Christ, the better my life is. And even though I grew up a Christian, even though people listening are Christians, even though your kids are Christians, that doesn’t mean they’re not drinking, watching porn, having sex, gambling, all these things behind the scenes. So we’ve got to check in with our loved ones more often in a loving way, not an accusatory way.

SPEAKER 02 : 11:28

Right. Yeah. And how do you see community having that sense of community and people, not just any community, but everybody needs a community where they really feel like they can be themselves. Tell the truth. How does that play into the whole process of addiction and recovery?

SPEAKER 01 : 11:45

Yeah, well, most people with addictions have been told what to do, and you’re a terrible person. Right. Because their addiction puts them in those situations, right? But when you walk into a room, like the first AA meeting I went to, I mean, there’s like NAs, Celebrate Recovery, Life Recovery. There’s all sorts of recovery programs. So what’s it one for you? I don’t know. Reach out. Maybe we can figure it out together, right? But without community, there’s no way I could have stayed sober. Because it’s fun. People get me. I can tell a story in a meeting room, and people kind of laugh at the story. Not at me, but like, oh, yeah, I’ve done that before. You’re not an oddball. But if you go to a Bible study and you kind of share some of those stories with people, honestly, people look at you like, maybe you’re supposed to be part of a different group. Yeah. So I think as Christians, we need to just be like, hey, let’s not judge people’s stories. It is what they are. But when you find a recovery group, like at Authentic Life Church is where I go, and Monday nights at 630 we meet and do a life recovery group, and people come in for the first time and just share, and they’re like… waiting for someone to kind of do a jab. We’re like, all right, let’s move on. So community is huge.

SPEAKER 02 : 12:55

Right. People that you can relate to and feel like you can be yourself. I kind of want to highlight real quick the condemnation versus the love, because I feel that condemnation… And the, you know, don’t do this just puts people further into the addiction. You pinpointed that. But the love of Christ, knowing that he’s completely forgiven us and it’s unconditional love. That’s what heals someone’s heart who’s in addiction.

SPEAKER 01 : 13:23

Amen. Well said.

SPEAKER 02 : 13:25

Well, definitely get this book. Rob Lohman wrote that is the addiction intervention. And Rob, how can they get it again?

SPEAKER 01 : 13:32

You can get a free recovery book dot com and just grab one there and I’ll mail one to you myself.

SPEAKER 02 : 13:37

Awesome. Well, Rob’s going to be back on a future public affairs and you have some exciting things going on. So we look forward to that. Thank you so much, Rob.

SPEAKER 01 : 13:45

Thanks. God bless. Appreciate it.