We talk with so many smart, high-achieving women who have all of the experience they need to tell a powerful story with a powerful message in a powerful book, and yet so often it can be really difficult for us to move ourselves forward to actually claim that experience and write that book. Today, we have special guest Lisa Katona Smith with us to talk about her book that is out today, Parallel Recovery. She discusses the amazing impetus for her book, how to weigh the personal and research in a nonfiction story based on experience, answering the call to share experience and a message, and moving herself forward past imposter syndrome. Watch below or scroll for a written transcript.
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Amanda: We are talking today with Lisa Katona Smith. She has a brand new book out today, Parallel Recovery. I’m so excited to chat with her about the process of writing this book, about all the things that she is sharing in this book, and all the people she is going to help, but first, let me tell you a little bit about Lisa.
Lisa Katona Smith is the founder of Parallel Recovery Family Recovery Services and a nationally-recognized advocate for families impacted by substance use disorder. Drawing from her personal journey and over 20 years as a master’s level educator, Lisa developed Parallel Recovery, an innovative approach to fostering healing, sustainability, and connection. A TEDx speaker and trusted guide, she empowers families with compassionate tools to navigate recovery together. In Parallel Recovery, Lisa shares her transformative insights to help families thrive one step at a time. With that, let’s get into it. Lisa, thank you so much for joining us on the podcast.
Lisa: You’re welcome. Thank you for having me.
Amanda: I’m so excited to talk about this book. As we were just chitty-chatting before the interview, it is so beautiful. The design is so, so pretty, but truly, the content of this book is what I’m the most proud of, because the lives that you are changing, and that you will change with this book—it’s just incredible. Kick us off. Tell us a little bit about what the book is about.
Lisa: The book is about inviting the family of someone struggling with substance use disorder to engage in their own recovery process, both for the sustainability of the journey that they’re on, as well as the impact of being able to connect with their loved one in a better, more authentic, real, and influential way.
Amanda: You’re both helping people—I’d just paraphrase what you said—helping people see this long process through, but also so that you’re not going through this long process and waiting till the end of it to reconnect with your person. I love that about your book, that you’ve got to have the love and the relationships there for the people to have something to come home to.
Lisa: Yes, we can’t wait until one day to love our people who are struggling. One, that’s not fair, and two, it’s actually driven by science that if you can learn how to connect with someone who’s having really hard struggles to watch and live, the effect on them wanting something different for their life is actually exponential.
Amanda: Yes, absolutely. I’m so glad you said that because one of the things that I love so much about this book, it is very specifically for people who love someone with substance use disorder, but also that does not have to be the case for this book to be so valuable for you. Truly, as we were editing, going through, I learned so much, things like pausing and letting your nervous system regulate before you just jump into the argument. Talk a little bit about your approach in that way. How are you thinking about some of these psychological concepts that you talk about?
Lisa: You’re not wrong with that. This is about how to have healthy relationships. Truth be told, human relationships are difficult. Very few have relationships that don’t have some challenge in it, especially when you’re talking about family members. It really is about how can I show up in a way that is authentic to myself. To ensure I’m received the way that I want to be received. I talk about values in the book and really a lot of personal reflection. One whole section is on personal reflection.
Ultimately, (the question is) how do I engage with somebody who might not be participating the way I want them to participate or even the way they want to participate, but they’ve got some things that are in their way that are creating challenges to showing up their best self? That’s where this comes from. It’s really a lot of self-reflection. The topics of the book are relational, but for the purpose of the book, I specifically talk about psychoeducation of substance use, addiction, and then connection with boundaries, agreements, how to love somebody where they’re at, and how to integrate those things into the relationship.
Amanda: Oh, I love it. The boundaries, agreements piece, thinking about how we navigate the non-negotiables in relationship, I found that so, so useful. One of the things listeners will have heard in the bio, you’ve been doing this for a while, but I also think it’s so clear, just hearing you talk about it and reading the book, that you have so much experience in a lot of different ways. As you have been going through this process on your own of developing this Parallel Recovery system, how did you know that it was time to write the book now?
Lisa: [chuckles] I’ve been doing this work with other families for some time now and have realized that through their journeys, things have not changed from the time when I was needing support myself with my own family’s journey through substance use disorder. I started doing what I’m doing because I couldn’t find help in a way that felt good or that was actually actionable or effective, and so I became the help.
In becoming the help, I realized, from a different lane with a different hat, that things still weren’t changing, that nothing was changing. There was a lot of, “Yes, yes, yes, we get it.” But there wasn’t action to help the families. There wasn’t an invitation to include the families, not just an invitation, but an expectation for the families to engage in a process of parallel support, parallel recovery. That’s where I just said, “Look, I’ve got to get this out there bigger because if I go one person at a time, the message is going to take too long to reach all the people.”
Amanda: Which I think you came at such a perfect time because, like you said, you have so much experience, you refined some of your approach and really thought about it. There’s tons of really research-rich, experience-rich stuff in the book. That, to me, is such a takeaway too is you want to get some experience going before you go into the book writing process so that you feel really confident about what you’re doing. I want to just ask this question, is there a world in which you never felt you were ready?
Lisa: Yes. [laughs]
Amanda: I feel like that happens so often with high-achieving women is like, “We are out there. We’re learning it. We know the stuff. It’s just it’s so hard to knock yourself that baby step forward, that awkward stumbling baby step forward.
Lisa: Yes, definitely. I don’t remember the exact question that you asked me that was the tipping point, but it was something along the lines of, “Is the world not ready
“Is this about you or is this about the message?” That was a personal reflection around imposter syndrome and who are you. I think, actually, recently you had a podcast conversation with yourself, a YouTube conversation about there’s always going to be other experts, and it’s okay if you’re not the only expert or the most highly qualified expert. You bring something to the table and owning that voice is important. Yes, I think it’s both. I, 100%, was not ready. I think it was brewing. I knew it was in my head, and there was an idea that needed a bigger platform and just more pages to put it all down. Also, there was definitely a world where I would have never been ready enough.
Amanda: One of the things that that I do find holds a lot of people up, not only the imposter syndrome thing so real, but also the fact that you do have to sift through things that are personal to yourself. Also, with your clients, you’ve got to think about what do I want to share in here and how do I make sure I’m thoughtful. I know you really had to weigh that. Talk a little bit about how you decided what pieces of other people’s experience to include and how you wanted to do that ethically.
Lisa: I talk a lot with the families that I work with. They struggle frequently, as do I, with how much of this is my story and how much of this is my loved one’s story. The truth is that family members are impacted, and so you have your own story. I tried very hard, but both with my own experience that’s in the book, as well as case studies that I used of specific people that I’ve worked with, to come from the lens of the affected family. How did they see things, how did they experience things, and how did they found solutions or healed things for themselves, which goes out to the other person as well.
As opposed to analyzing from the lens of the affected person, I really tried to just stay from the lens of the family member and have that resonate. What I wanted people to do was read and feel like me too—not my person too, but me too. Families are not given space to be validated in their experience, and just that needs to be given.
Amanda: Absolutely. There was so much care. You took so much care throughout this book, and I think it really shows. I wonder also about a couple of instances in the book where someone gave you really bad advice, but it was so important that it’s included in the book, but that person could identify themselves. The story I’m thinking of was that your son had made one choice, and the doctor said, “Oh, back to square one,” and it was not that at all. Talk a little bit more about how you thought about that kind of thing.
Lisa: About sharing it?
Amanda: Yes.
Lisa: I thought it was important to share, not to throw somebody under the bus or to throw professional guidance, to throw judgment at it, but I really hope that professionals can read the book as well and see how small shifts in their mindset can help them be able to support families better, and could also, ultimately, have their client have their outcome be better as well. That’s my hope.
Again, it’s not about pointing fingers and saying, “You told me the wrong thing,” or, “You didn’t align with my thought process.” It’s about allowing professionals to go, “Maybe there’s a different angle that I’ve not experienced, because I’ve not actually been in the shoes of this family or of a family who’s affected. I’m coming from a very different lens.” It’s super important. If I could wave a magic wand, families would go into treatment with their people, but that’s just not a thing, and I don’t think it’s going to become a thing anytime soon. It’s essential in my view, which is 100% why I wrote the book, that families are given an opportunity to be included in a recovery process, even though they can’t leave their lives and go to treatment.
Amanda: Yes, absolutely. I love that. We’ve pointed at this a little bit, but I want to invite you to share a little bit more. There’s a lot of really personal stuff from you and your family in the book that is so powerful. Lisa, I was rereading Chapter 1 the other day, and I was just weeping, literally weeping. That feels really vulnerable. How did you think about how much of my family stuff do I want to put in here?
Lisa: Chapter 1 is hard. [chuckles] Chapter 1’s hard for me too. I think the process of working with you guys was super helpful. A little bit of coaching and support around, “This is going to be a hard one. Prepare yourself,” Also, a combination of there being a soft place with your team of honoring those stories and keeping them very sacred. Also, I have a voice that’s, obviously, very public. I spend a lot of time witnessing and watching what resonates with people.
What resonates with people is when I am vulnerable about my experience, and I’m also showing strength on the other side of that vulnerability. That’s where I got comfortable with it. If I want people to step into this, I need to show that I stepped into it, that I didn’t show up strong. I showed up broken, and I became strong, but it was a process. I don’t want people to feel like I’m not strong enough to do that. I can do that too. I felt like they needed to see that it’s hard even for me, and I do this all day, every day.
Amanda: Seriously, y’all, this Chapter 1 we’re talking about, it is weepy in the best way. It is so moving. I felt so seen, and I do not have a person in my life that has substance use disorder.
Actually—this is a little bit of a clunky transition, but it works just fine. I’m thinking about some of the terminology that you are so careful with. Even thinking, how did we want the title and the subtitle to make sure that you were being really inclusive and really thoughtful about how you were talking about some of these things that are so stigmatized. Can you talk a little bit more about what was that like both as you’ve come through your experience and built your business and your work, but also as you had to come through the book where you’re committing to the word, and that is the word it’s going to be?
Lisa: I really wanted both—PC language or language of the times changes. We evolve our language usage. I wanted the language used to have longevity. The subtitle specifically, I feel like I pondered over that one at such length. Inclusive, so people who love someone, not just family members, you can love someone who is a chosen family member.
Then finally, it’s not just person-centered, but person-focused, person-first language. Effectively, it was addressed in one of the chapters around language, that this isn’t about becoming the word police, but this really is about using language in a comfortable way so that it becomes comfortable to be community-accepted.
I have done this long enough that I’ve had people tell me I speak differently when I speak about this, or these people, or this experience because I’ve heard you talk at such length about this, and the words you very strategically choose resonated with me, and I’ve watched other people experience safety and comfort. It was a challenge, but I’m so happy with how it reads. One of my personal values is inclusivity, and so I think it aligns with that perfectly.
Amanda: Yes, I agree. It was fun just as an editor to hear about how your thoughts were changing on some things. I was chatting with Emily, who also worked with Lisa on this book. She and I were chatting about in my second book, I had a lot of stuff with language because we were changing the way we were talking about race at that time. I don’t even necessarily think I made all the right choices, but the point is that you’re so careful, and you’re thoughtful about it. I think that will always pay off, even if language shifts in some way that you would do it differently now.
Lisa: Yes, totally. There was actually one point during the language section where I had choices. I was witness to some conversations around the term “fentanyl poisoning,” and “died by fentanyl.” I hadn’t gone into that chapter thinking I was going to address that because that could be a whole other book. I was speaking with Emily, and I came to our session. I said, “I am just feeling pulled to address this. I feel like I need to. And I want to. I want to be a platform for families to not hide and not be embarrassed or feel shamed.”
She was like, “We have to.” I said, “I don’t know how to do that without adding a whole other chapter.” But we did it in a couple of paragraphs, and it’s enough. It’s just enough to go to the hard thing and not isolate anybody because there are groups of people that choose to use the term “fentanyl poisoning.” I have encouraged people in the book to not use that term. My hope is that the way I explained it and the way it came across invites those who use that term to think about why, and if maybe they might want to change that to be more inclusive of people who are suffering.
Amanda: Yes, the whole book. It’s such a strength of the book that it is so invitational. There is no sense ever that anyone should have any shame. It’s so good, so good. It is out today. I’m so, so excited that other people can read it now. The book’s out today, and it’s been some time in the making. How are you feeling, and what are you excited about in the next couple weeks, months?
Lisa: I’m so excited for it to be a springboard, a platform for conversation to change. I’ve already seen it leading to people getting excited. People who have read it and given testimonies about it are just glowing about it, and I’m so thankful for that. I’m just excited to use it as an opportunity for families who are just starting or don’t know where to go to get help. There’s a different voice, and there’s a different process that feels actionable to them that doesn’t require hundreds of thousands of dollars and things that they might not have access to in their community and their support network.
The book offers an alternative to what’s been out there. At least, it’s offering an extension to what’s been out there. What’s been out there for families is limited. I think it’s also flawed, but it’s at best been limited. This book says, “You can do more than that,” and feel actionable, which takes families away from the ineffective and, frankly, unhealthy action into more of a productive and healthy action.
Amanda: I love it. I remember when we very first were introduced by a mutual friend, and you were telling me what you wanted the book to do. I ask everybody that, by the way, if you’re listening and thinking of signing up for a consult, I asked you why you wanted to do it. Whenever somebody gives that answer, it’s like, “Yes, let’s do it.” Amazing. I just want to wrap up by just asking you, do you have one piece of advice, one or two pieces of advice for somebody who is building their career, they’ve got the experience under their belt, but they’re just not sure if it’s time to write the book or not? What would you say?
Lisa: I would say to talk to you, honestly. I 100% mean that. I think that the way I went about this process, which was a whole lot of ideas, how do I get this from my head to paper, to having several consultations with you and getting comfort with the person that I was working with, having an understanding of what I was looking to produce, rather than inputting what they think I want to produce, that was huge.
That was a turning point for me. Then, I 100% would encourage people who are looking to write a book to get support around that book, because I have a whole other job that isn’t this. I would not have been able to pull it together with such preciseness and in the timeframe that I was. Even though it’s still a long time frame, I could have been stuck forever. I would recommend getting the support, again, the coaching, the support around getting out of your head and into the idea and the message that you do have to offer, and that it is valuable, and finding comfort and confidence in that.
Amanda: Oh, yes. I think it’s easy to underestimate how valuable that is, but to have somebody just believe in you truly, it makes such a difference, such a difference. Folks who are wanting to get in touch, follow your work, whether they’re needing support or just want to follow you, what would you suggest? How should they stay in touch?
Lisa: I have a website, lisakatonasmith.org. I am on Instagram, mostly active there, parallel_recovery. You can always get me at email lisa@parallelrecovery.org.
Amanda: She has an amazing TED Talk, by the way also, that is a great intro also into this work. Lisa, this is so valuable. I know people are going to get so much out of it. Thank you so much for joining us.
Lisa: Thank you so much.
