Ep 33 Transcript: From Survivor to Author: Navigating Spousal Addiction Through Advocacy with Kathryn M Lackey

This transcript was auto-generated and may contain errors in spelling or inaccuracies in the spoken words.

Shauna Lynn Simon (00:02)

Hello and welcome to the Real Women Real Business podcast. I am your host, Shauna Lynn Simon. And today I am so excited for this extra special guest. I am joined by Kathryn Lackey today. And so Kathryn is the founder of Heart of The Home styling and Designs. And we actually initially met through that business of hers. She's a very, very, very talented kitchen and bath interior designer.

as well as a home stager. And we actually met through a retreat that she attended with myself and several colleagues where we hosted this business retreat that she had attended a number of years ago. And since then, she has gone on to continue to build that business, but she is also now the author of the newly released book.

Letters from Love's Battlefield. And I just happen to have my copy right here. And if we weren't on Zoom, I would be having her autograph it for me because this is going to be the biggest hit out there. This is a, a beautiful, beautiful book. And we're to talk more about what this book entails and the beautiful journey that she's, she's been on with this book. It's definitely been a passion project to say the least. And you know, she shares her calling to how she comes about.

writing this book, she's gonna be sharing that in this episode today. And the hope of course is to help to empower others through her writing. So whether you're an inspiring author yourself and thinking about writing a book, we can talk about that of course, but we're also gonna be talking about the actual content of this book, which is really, really special. And I'm not gonna get too far into it, but I will tell you that the name of the book is Letters from Love's Battlefield, Triumph in the Aftermath of a Spouse's Sexual Addiction. And this is a memoir that she has written.

And the reason why I don't wanna spoil anything too much is because the way that she came about writing this book is truly special. So before we get to that, first and foremost, I just wanna say welcome, Kathryn. Thank you. I am so glad to be here. I am thrilled to have you join me because over the years that I've known you, it's been several years now we've worked together, both at that retreat we've worked together in one-on-one coaching and group coaching. And through all of that, not only

Are you a valued client of mine, but you're someone that I truly consider a dear friend. And it has been such an honor for me to be a part of this journey with you and watching you as you do this. I remember when, I believe if correct me I'm wrong on the dates here, but it was around spring of 2023 when you said to me, by the way, I'm writing a book. And it was kind of this downplayed sort of thing at that time that you mentioned it.

And this is no small feat. I thought it was like, she's going to do a little ebook or something. That's adorable. Like, I didn't know. Like, you can imagine what the topic was going to be. And I thought that sounded great. But next thing I know, you're like, no, no, no. I have a publisher. This is a full deal. And you began to share a little bit about how you got onto this journey. So let's just dive right into that. How did you come about writing this book? Well, it was definitely a process.

You know, you and I met right about the time when, well, I had just started my business six months prior. Right And then right before COVID, we had the retreat. was in February, COVID came out in March. And I had already made the decision at that point that I was gonna move to Nashville. I was gonna get out of Dodge because my husband, my ex-husband was getting out of prison.

And my company in Dallas had been very successful. I had client after client after client, because when I started my business, you know, when I was a W2 employee, people followed me when I started. Plus I had leads coming in and I closed just about all of them. So I was very, very blessed in the beginning. Everybody, especially my family, my kids were scratching their heads. Why would you give all that up to go to Nashville? I could not deal with the drama.

of my husband returning to Dallas again, it was gonna throw me off my game. I believed at that time I had healed. There's always healing that can be done, truly. And I know because I've gone through this trauma a second time to write the book and really had to put some things to rest. But how did the book actually take place? Well, my company didn't work so well.

Nashville. that was not the best decision I ever made. I'm not gonna say it was rash, but it was what I feel I needed to do. And I'm looking back saying God had a plan. Okay, I produced a book. Sure. But because of financial necessity, I wound up taking a W-2 job after I gave my company two years and it was a different market. There was very hard to get business.

I couldn't find an installer that I could work with effectively. So took a W-2 job to pay the bills. A year later, less than a year later, with the recession and the economy beginning to tank, I lost my job. Well, during that process, before losing my job, my husband, and I call him my husband just because I never remarried, okay, it's just, it happens.

So during the two years as an intro to Nashville, my husband had passed away. He got out of prison. He went back to his addiction and he died. He fell to his death in his hotel room. He hit his head on the vanity. He coupled his sexual addiction with alcohol and he was found dead and alone in the hotel room by the maid service.

So this was just four months after I had uprooted everything to get out of Dodge. And I did wind up going through the motions of burying him. She couldn't bury him during COVID. We had to wait until the following year. And I had to settle his estate. All of that took a little while and a lot of emotion.

You know, when someone falls back into an addiction that they know is not the best for them and they don't serve as a role model when they die, you pretty much sigh and take a breath, say, wow, that was really sad. Why did they do that? And then you bury it and you put it away and it's just, you know, it's a memory. Well, for me, that didn't happen because when I went into my safe,

to get his will, because he had never redone his will. And we had to have a will to settle the estate. I pulled out the will from when we were married. I'd never thrown it away, because I mean, who cleans out there safe, really? Right. So but with that will came a stack of letters that I had written and totally forgotten about. I mean, at this point, like 15 years had passed by.

And I started reading the letters and they defined every moment of the tragedy from the very beginning of when I found out what he was into because he had basically another life. He had lost his job. He had never lost a job in his life. The man was very, I guess you could say kind of prestigious. You know, he had multiple honors in school, had multiple scholarships to college. He went into the Air Force.

he was just one of those really good catches, I guess you could say. And that's why I always refer to him as my officer and a gentleman because he was handsome. He was smart and he chose me. You know, not that I wasn't worth it, but we were such a mismatch. We just had totally different backgrounds and he was just, he treated me so well, like a Southern. Gentlemen.

and took care of me when I got sick in college, when everybody else abandoned me, he was always there for me. I trusted him with my life. I really did. And so the two of you, you were married and you had, you had how many kids together? We had three children together. Okay. And so you built this whole family, this whole life. And then at what point in your marriage did the addiction come out? 20 years. It was my 20 year anniversary.

As a matter of fact, had just come home from our anniversary trip and our marriage had been on the rocks for years. We lost our son, our oldest son when he was five. And Kyle was my husband's name. He never came back from that. He dove into his work and that was his outlet. So...

He slowly became a shell and I saw his personality evaporate over time and it became very confusing to me. It was almost like I had this discernment that something tragic was going on with him. Couldn't figure out what it was. And then as soon as I got myself back up and running, because I was in the advertising world back then.

And I'd gotten back into freelancing. My kids were small. They were in elementary school at that time. We'd lost Ryan a few years before. We'd just built a new house, had moved into that lovely house that was supposed to be our forever home. And he had been traveling a lot. The economy tanked then after 9-11. And we were forced to Dallas. So shortly after we moved to Dallas,

when the kids were having trouble settling in, I was very depressed because I couldn't figure out why my husband was becoming a shell. At a time when I really needed him the most, I didn't have any friendships. And yeah, the gift of discernment was very much there. And that's part of the process of discovering addiction because the addict will hide his addiction from you.

so that he can keep it alive and flourish it on the side. What I think this is something you do cover in the book is that you have to go through, like you went through so, there was so much that you went through with this trauma because you're going through the grief of losing everything that you had built with this man, the love of your life, the father of your children. Then you're grieving him in his death.

Even though, like you said, it's kind of, you you pack it away a little bit, but you're still grieving him. And then you're reliving it, of course, in this book. But one thing that throughout that journey is you develop a really deep understanding of not just sexual addiction, but addiction in general. And there's so much compassion that comes with it, you know? So, and I think it's a really hard thing for someone who's been through something like this, you know, you're feeling personally wounded from

you know, the effects of his addiction on you and your life. You know, you're feeling all of those personal effects, of course, of it. And at the same time, you offer so much grace and compassion. At no point do you, you know, allow him to just, at no point are you saying in here that it's okay. You know, all the things that you did were just fine. It's not like you're absolving him of his sins, so to speak, but at the same time,

you offer so much compassion and understanding to the addiction part of it. And think that's one of the hardest things that anyone going on this journey is, you you're trying to reconcile. I understand this is an addiction and someone doesn't have control over this, but it has personally affected me and it has altered my entire life as I know it. And how do you find that forgiveness? Where did that come from for you? Knowledge. Okay. Knowledge. When he died, I,

really tried to put the entire event behind me. You know, it was basically trying to repeat itself and I wouldn't let it. I'd started a new life. I had forgiven him. When I buried him, I had, you know, I wrote another chapter of the book, which was basically his eulogy and my final goodbyes. And I threw it away. Okay. No, not literally. I just said, this is my past. This is my future.

You put it in, you put it in the rear view mirror. put it in the rear view mirror was part of life's journey. And I had forgiven him because through my research, finding out about addiction many years prior, decades prior, when all the incident happened, you know, me, I'm a control freak. I have to make sure that everything's going to be the way it should be. Everything's going to be okay. When he had lost his mind,

and fallen into sexual addiction, cost us almost everything. Okay. He was facing indictment and I had to know what is this thing that has entered our world and shattered it or potentially shattered it. And so I went to the library and went to Amazon and I took out

every book ever written at that stage. This all happened back in 2005 2006-ish. Right. And I just had this huge stack, I think at one time I had nine books on my nightstand. And when I wasn't being a mom, and dad, at that point, I was studying. And I was trying to learn what is sexual addiction? I never even knew it was a thing. I really didn't. I knew men cheated on their wives. I knew some men looked at

nasty magazines, but I never knew that it was an addiction. But it's like any other addiction. It works the same way. It rewires us and causes us to become dependent. I could not cure him of addiction, no matter what I did, any more than I could cure him of cancer. And that's gonna be hard for someone like you who is a control freak. I know myself, I've dealt with my fair share of challenging

times throughout my life. And, you know, and I teach it in our coaching for that matter of, know, identifying what can you control versus what can't you control? Because the things you can control, are things you can do about that for the things that you can't control. You have to find the tools and the resources within you, whatever that looks like to you. But you have to deal with the fact that you may never get the answers that you want. You may never get the outcome that you want, and you can't control that. And you have to be able to let it go. I would imagine for you.

That was one of the very challenging thing to do. And so these letters that you talk about, explain a little bit more about those because these are letters that were never mailed, correct? They were never mailed. What happened was when he was basically here today, gone tomorrow. When I found out what he was into, a few months later, after visiting the lawyer and finding out what the process was, which is all in chapter one,

He had to leave. Yeah. And he had been my college sweetheart. We'd been together total for 25 years at that point. I talked to him every day, you know, not having him around was like not having my right arm. It was just really inconceivable. So at that time, you know, I focused on the kids sheltering the kids. They were younger. Grayson was 11. Katie was 14 and

I just wanted their world to be as normal as possible. So that was how I tried to act when they were not around. And I never cried and I didn't bellow or anything like that. But when they went to school, it was a different story. Then I focused on myself and my emotional health at that point. I could not get on with my day normally, which included, you know, with a cleaning house, walking the dogs or whatever.

I could not function without downloading the pain that was going on inside of me, kind of like emotional throw up, if you will. But I love that. I love the term that just use. So downloading and downloading the pain, essentially. I love it. I love that phrase. I still do it today. Morning is my time. I do it with my business. I take a tablet. I go outside with my coffee and I just download, even if I throw the papers away, download what's in my head.

and that way it doesn't jumble up or get discarded in my mind, I have something tangible that I can tackle that day. Well, yeah. Yeah, it's a form of journaling, essentially, and this is something that, if you've ever taken any sort of professional therapy, it's a huge tactic that's often used is to write a letter to the person who has impacted you and caused you any sort of harm or trauma or whatnot.

You know, I've been in therapy myself. I dealt with some abuse as a child that I had to later deal with. that was one of the ways that we addressed it in therapy. And it's a very, very healthy thing to do. But I mean, essentially, it's a fancy way of journaling and it's incredibly healthy. And I love that you did write the letters and you saved the letters because that's the other really impactful thing about this is that you forgot that you would even save those letters, right?

I had, I just put him in the safe. couldn't mail them to him. Of course. Yeah, so But I got my thoughts out So I put them away in the safe for all those years then I dug them out when he died I read them it walked through everything even things that I had forgotten because PTSD I literally went into PTSD and Did not realize that until years later

but there was stuff that I had totally forgotten and it just came rushing back to me and I was like, okay, what do I do with this? And I talked to my daughter and she totally erased him from her life long ago. I mean, you touch on it in the book, but I mean, I can't even imagine that's your father. That's a hard thing. It was a very public, like you have to learn some pretty intimate details.

And some pretty intimate details about like, I mean, let's face it. Most of us don't really want to think about our parents having sex, nevermind a parent having a sexual addiction. that, that has got to be something that's incredibly challenging and the nature of his addiction, I'm sure was especially disturbing. It was quite horrifying to the entire family, but probably especially to me and Katie, because it was not only on the public news, but we were new in our neighborhood. We were in a very nice neighborhood.

This has probably go for one and a half million dollars now in this day and age. But all of our neighbors were new friends to us. Their daughters spent the night at our house a lot of time on the weekends. And they found out all of this. His mugshot was on the evening news. He had worked with a very high profile tech company here in Dallas. He was a manager. He had employees under him.

And yet he had been downloading pornography through the fax line and he'd been meeting with hookers at lunchtime as well as doctors, lawyers, politicians that were on his private email list that he had so that he could play white collar pimp basically for them when they traveled through Dallas. He never did disclose the names on that email list.

He said they were too high profile. It would destroy their careers. Wow. And I mean, it really does go to show though, too, that, know, and this is something that has been very prevalent in the news. And you also address that about how this has become something that we're finally talking about. This is not something that hasn't happened previously, but it's, only getting the, the voice that it really needs in the last few years in the way that it should be getting it. And, you know, but you,

There is something to be said for, you they always say like, never know. I didn't think that, you know, when you're talking about the Cosby's and the Epstein's, you know, these are people who are high profile, who, you know, I honestly don't even want to give them the attention of mentioning them on this podcast because of what they did. But I mean, like to talk about Cosby for a moment, this guy, you want to talk about someone you're trusting with your kids. This guy was the Jell-O commercial. I mean, come on. Like he was Mr. Family Man. And it just goes to show that, you know, here,

So that's someone in a very public persona. And of course it's not fair that we identified Bill Cosby as being the character that he played. But when the case of your husband, the character he was playing was in real life. I mean, here's someone who, he doesn't look like an addict. He doesn't act like an addict to the people around him on a day-to-day basis that don't know, that aren't a part of that inner circle, that aren't a part of that email list.

You know, he presents as this upstanding person and meanwhile, behind closed doors, he's living a double life. He's living a very different life and being his wife, you know, I can't imagine how that has played into your life of, I mean, how have you moved on since dealing with his addiction? And I know the book is a big part of it, right? Like this is a part of your healing journey, right?

The book was never part of the plan. You and I both know that. It just presented itself and it was never about me. You know, I'm very firm in my faith. That was one thing that came out of losing my son. Okay, where Kyle found his addiction, I found a relationship with a God who walked me through every step of the way. I, writing this book really,

grew that relationship even more. I've learned even more about my faith and about God and his promises. And he slowly trickles his promises to me each and every day through messages that I get. So that's been a really neat experience. But when he died and I put all that in the rear view mirror, coincidences kept happening. You know, like I would sit down.

in the evening and I'd watch the evening news. Granted COVID was coming and going during that time. So we had a lot of quarantines. I still had business to build and money to make. I'd sit down at the end of the evening and there'd be report after report after report about the sex offenders that were, you know, coming to surface during the COVID era. And, you know, I'd listen to it. My Chihuahua ears would perk up. And then I started making a list and I was like, wow.

This is really something. And finally, one evening I said, you know what? Behind every one of these criminals is a woman who doesn't know how to heal. And I've been there and I've done that and I can help them. And it was through those coincidences that I became more alert as to what God had for me during that time. It wasn't to build a business. I could if I wanted to.

but he presented opportunities and I would just say, just mainly opportunities for me if I answered the call. So I had my list of people and then it just kept coming back to me. And a friend of mine is an author. Our kids were in play group together back in Raleigh. And I touched base with her on Facebook. Her name's Felicia Bridges.

And I said, Felicia, I don't know what's happening to me here. I'm supposed to be building business. have no time to write a book. This is not on my radar. What do I do here? And she said, I don't know where God's calling you, but I know where you need to start. And she led me to the Blue Ridge Mountain Christian Writers Conference. I'd never written anything but a term paper and Christmas cards. And yes, I have a journalism degree.

but I use that toward ad PR, okay? So I went to the writers conference and I was a deer in headlights. I really was, was the only one there who didn't have a manuscript. All I had was something up here. And I'm meeting all these authors and publicists and editors and publishers and whatever. And as part of that conference, you get 15 minutes with two people, an editor, a publisher, whatever you choose. And you get to sit down with them.

kind of pitch your story or have them kind of coach you, whatever the case may be. Well, I didn't know one from another, so I just picked two. I really didn't. Yeah. And I felt really stupid being there. So I sat down with Suzanne Kuhn from Iron Street Media, which is part of the Brookstone group. This like their self-publishing arm, if you will. So I sat down with her and I said, I have an idea.

and I told her about Kyle's death and sexual addiction and my list and everything. And I said, I have no time to write this. I would need a ghostwriter. I don't know how this would come to be. I really don't know why I'm here. Literally, this is what I said. And she leaned over the table and she said, Kathy, we have people who can do that for you. So over the next year, as I'm working W-2 as a district manager, which is quite a lot of responsibility,

I had a couple of Zoom calls with them, but it never materialized. It's like, this is going to cost me money. You know, I'm, I'm self published. I'm not fully published. I had a publisher that was willing who saw I had a story and they were willing to make it come to fruition. But I, they did not, you know, give me money upfront and say, we'll take care of all the marketing and all that. Right. A lot of people don't know what's involved.

in publishing a book and quite frankly had I known I might not have done it because it was really hard. One of hardest things, one of the most rewarding things I've ever done. But yes, it was incredibly hard. And it wasn't until I lost the job that, you know, it took a little time to steam over that. And then I sat down with Social Security because I found out I was entitled to survivor benefits.

that really surprised me. And then I had my unemployment and I had my budget and the two equaled the same. It's like God saying, here you go. You got the money to be able to, yeah, I'm providing for you for 12 months and you can do this if you choose. So I had a window of opportunity and at that point I said, you know what?

God didn't do this to me because it was quite a walk, it was a walk of pain. He didn't do it to me. He did it for me. He did it for me so I could help others through their walk. So I had to figure out how to use those letters to help other women walk the walk to healing. I had learned a lot from you and the other coaches that I've had through the years as far as finding your value.

and how to build a business and all starts with your vision and your mindset. Okay. No different than building yourself up as a person of worth. So I use that and my story to create a pathway to show that if you decide to go through this and at the end, turn into a victim, that's on you. Right.

You know, you're doing that because you don't want, or you don't know how to heal. There are resources out there to heal and I bring those to the surface. But through me, you know, I'm a control control freak. And when I realized I could not control what was going on with my family, it slowly eroded my confidence in who I was. I didn't know who I was anymore. And I was just going through the motions of survivorship.

And do you feel that this book helped to bring that identity for you? It gave you a bit more of that purpose that you were looking for. I believe it definitely helped. mean, I thought I'd already had it because I've gone through many years. I'd already built a business. You know, I'd had, you know, six figure projects. I knew what I was doing. I'd been doing it for years and I fell into design as part of my survivorship. Right.

I wasn't in that before. I dabbled in it. But I believe that going through the motions of survivorship doesn't produce your true purpose. I want women, the women behind the screen on the TV that I heard about or didn't hear about because I was hearing about the offenders, I want them to be able to know

that if they shed the shame, shed that scarlet letter, because I carried it for very long time, that scarlet letter of what someone else has done to you, whether it be trauma, abuse, you know, I, this was a form of abuse, it was emotional abuse, what my husband did to me. But when you are inflicted by external pain, you have the choice to rise above it, right, or become the victim.

Those are your two choices. When I think, sorry, go ahead. I apologize. Go ahead. Yeah. No, that's okay. I didn't realize that I had become a victim. That was the thing. Right. I was just doing what I had to do to do the day to day provide for my family, but that wasn't getting me anywhere. And this solidified me, his death and writing the book really solidified how far I had come.

And I wanted to share that with other women so that they too could find purpose, inspiration, hope, and the resources to do the same thing, because this is affecting more and more families. I mean, the statistics are quite alarming and they're all included in the book, but you can, you know, Google it and there's a gazillion statistics that come up. The thing that is really quite maddening is how pornography

you know, which is generally the start, I call it the gateway. But our children, our innocent children are becoming exposed to sexual liberalism, if you will, that goes totally against what was meant to be in the beginning, if you will. You know, we don't have any more family values and we're letting our children choose their sexual identity versus teaching them

what family values and, you know, growing up sexually healthy is meant to occur. I mean, our culture is slowly degrading and going downhill. The traditional family unit is being threatened. These kids are surviving on their own without the mental maturity to know what's right from wrong because they're shrapnel, if you will, in their families that are broken.

you know, mom's going to work full time, sometimes working two and three jobs just to support everybody. And then they're being exposed to things that they can't judge right from wrong because they just don't have the maturity to do it. And then, you know, there's also the kids that are falling into prostitution and the entertainment industry, you know, brought in from other lands. Yeah. Yeah. I I, and I will say, you know, I,

I wouldn't say that I personally believe that there is a traditional family value that needs to be, or traditional family, I should say, of what a family unit should look like. That's not something that I personally believe in. I believe that each person should be allowed to live the life that they see as true and authentic to themselves and love is love.

And at the same time, that's not what we're talking about here. This is not love that we're talking about. We're talking about the sexual acts, the indecency, the way that women are being trafficked. And it's a whole other way of portraying relationships in a very unhealthy way. I've always said, you do you. mean, my friends come from every color of the rainbow and I love every one of them the same.

And if your decisions, and when I say you do you, it's not even just about sexual preference, it's not about gender identity, it's not about any of those things, so much as it is just, you know, whatever it is that makes you happy, you do you. But if what makes you happy, for example, is going around killing people, well, that's a problem for me, right? So like there are limitations to you do you. And the same thing comes when it comes to the sexual addiction. I mean, if what you're doing isn't harming anybody, great, but sexual addiction,

causes immense harm. And that I think is really like what you're talking about with the women behind, we're kind of getting out of time here, but I do want to touch on a couple of things before we close things off, because you talk about the women behind these men. And in this case, we are talking about men. It's not to say that women don't suffer from this, but I've seen the stats on it. It is men predominantly. And so in this podcast is geared towards women. So the chances are there is a woman listening to this podcast and there are probably several women listening to this podcast.

who have experienced something like this and perhaps didn't even have a name for it and didn't consider themselves a victim or a survivor of this trauma. And I can't relate specifically. The closest that I have though is I had a massage therapist many years ago who was arrested for voyeurism. He had a hidden camera set up in the change room. And for all of us women that were undressing, he was catching it on camera.

I, according to the police, they never found any files on me, which I'm grateful for, but there were plenty of women who, who they did find files on. And this was someone who I considered him a friend. We actually, attended business events at the same time. And I got to know, you know, various colleagues and such, and we become, you know, decently close, I would say. And he was married, no children, but he was married. And when this all came out, I will say that.

A couple of things that I want to say about this was that he was deeply, deeply ashamed. And he was very, he wished that he hadn't, he felt that he had an illness inside him. And he spoke about that. And he actually chose to not go through a trial because he did not want any of the victims to have to endure that. And so I have a lot of respect for him for being able to, he couldn't control his addiction, but he, he did identify how he could save these women from further harm.

And so I do have a lot of respect for him for that. Naturally his wife left him. And I just remember thinking for me, knowing him the way that I did personally, I remember how I was trying to reconcile this person who was, he was a philanthropist. He was this beautiful human, always talking about, we're always talking about different growth type things and mindset and wellness and just seemed like this absolute, absolutely beautiful human. And I'm trying to reconcile that with

the fact that he's now sitting in jail for a terrible crime, an incredibly offensive crime. And all I could think about was if I'm struggling to reconcile this, how the heck does his wife deal with this? And I remember, and that's why love that you talk about the women behind this, because I remember I couldn't stop thinking about her. And I felt sorry for him as well. I definitely felt like, what he was doing was absolutely wrong.

There's no forgiveness for that. And I never spoke another word to him after this. Obviously, like there was, cut ties because I could have at any time been identified as a potential victim. But despite all of that, you I did feel like there was a part of me that almost wanted to reach out to him just to say, you know, that I'm sorry that you're going through all of this and I hope that you find the healing and the help that you need. Not to say like we're going to be friends and everything's okay, something like that. But he was clearly on this path of trying, wanting to do better.

wanting to be better. And this is where this was my first introduction to sexual addiction in the, sense of he cannot control it any more than an alcoholic can control taking a drink any more than a gambler can control taking a bet. And the challenge is like, there methods and treatment for this? Absolutely. sexual addiction is not something that is publicized the same way.

as alcoholics anonymous. It's not something that's as widely accepted as being an addiction. Alcoholism is now identified as being a medical disease, whereas sexual addiction still faces so much stigmatism. And so the women behind this are experiencing such immense shame from this in a way that, if you can say like, well, yeah, of course, you know.

my marriage failed, my husband was an alcoholic and I can no longer support that. that makes perfect sense. And you know what? Here's a support group for you to go and take care of that. And it's not the same support. It's not to say that there aren't resources out there because I know that there are, but it's not getting the same publicity. It's not getting the same attention, the women that are behind this. I think that's, if what I think that I recall from when we first started talking about this book was that you said to me, if I could help,

one person with this book. It's all worth it. So I know you talked about like, this was a lot of work. You're self-published. There was a financial investment, but aside from the financial investment, the time investment, everything that goes into marketing, you're essentially, this is running a whole other business by publishing this book. And I know you have a second one in the works as well that you're kind of working through there, but this is not a small feat by any means. This is a whole other business. And you did all of this to help one person. And that's powerful.

I hope it does. Because like you say, it was a lot of work. Yes. And I'm sure, I'm sure that I have no doubt. you know, I, I'm a part of your, your launch crew, your launch team. And so, we all have a of a private Facebook group that we've been a part of throughout this process. And I have seen, the healing that has brought others, even, even if they didn't face the exact same thing that you did, this, this book brings a lot of healing to anyone. Well,

You know, I facilitate divorce care again, now that I'm back in Dallas. I've done it for years. And as soon as they saw my eyeballs at my church, they said, you're back in. Yeah, I'm back into that. But being a facilitator, divorce care was a large influence in the purpose of writing this book is one of those coincidences, if you will, where each semester I would meet one, if not two women who are going through a version of this.

and we're struggling to figure out how to put their lives back together again. Socially, I meet women and they'll hear of my book and say, I know someone or someone in my family is going through that. Going to the library, the public library to record the upcoming audio book of this book, the librarian asked me my story and I told her a condensed version. She said, you know what, my friend lives in a neighborhood and the SWAT team just invaded.

One of the neighbors houses because they suspected that there was child pornography in the house and like it just it kept coming up to me. So I know that there's a purpose for this book. You know, I hired a publicist for a very brief time. He fired me because I'm a control freak. But he said, Kathy, why are you writing a book like this? There are plenty of books on the market about this. And I said,

you know, actually there's not. There are a lot of books on the subject written by professionals, by psychologists. There are resources out there to help them in that regard. But I don't believe that there is one book out there that has the actual spouse's walk that includes her walk to healing to the end. And there's not a single book out there that has a letter in each chapter of her walk.

And that's exactly what you do. This, is a journey that, and I think that's one of the beautiful things about it is that we get to walk with you through it. And I, I do imagine, it must've been quite traumatic to relive all of this. And I think that it's, I, I want to say on behalf of, every woman out there who's going to be benefiting from your book, I want to say thank you for, going through that, because I know that wasn't, that, brought up a whole lot of pain, not only reliving the trauma of this, but the trauma of losing your son as well, which was a big trigger.

for your husband's sexual addiction. So I can't imagine all the different emotions, of course, that come along with all of that. And I'm sure that there are probably family members who don't want the story to be told. This is not a non-controversial book. So thank you for putting everything into this. So listen, we're kind of getting towards the end of our time, but I do wanna ask one more question before we get to how people can get in touch with you and everything else. But I do wanna ask you, if someone is...

thinking, you know what, I've got a book inside of me. Because I can imagine there's probably women who are listening to this episode thinking, I felt compelled to write a book for years. I've always had this idea in my head that I wanna write this book. And in fact, I have another coaching client who was on that path as well where she's like, I wanna write a book. And I'm sure that as you mentioned, people who were like, I have a book, I wanna write a book. If you were to give one piece of advice, and you got about a minute for this.

One piece of advice for someone who is an aspiring author, what would you tell them to take that first step? Because I think that's probably the biggest thing for a lot of these people is that they got the book in their head, but they're just not sure what that first step is. What would you tell them to do? What's that one piece of advice you've got for them? Hire a coach. Hire a coach. I love it. I mean, I'm not going to complain about that. Absolutely. I believe in coaching, whether it's coaching for writing a book or coaching for your business, hire a coach. Yes. And you walked with me through this journey.

So thank you. It was a privilege to have you by my side. It's my honor. Let me tell you, watching you do this, this was incredible for me. You helped me a lot. You had my back. That meant the world to me. You need someone to have your back. And I also had a book coach that was provided me by the publisher who helped me write the book. Because I'd never written one. I didn't know what the process was. And she edited every chapter. She walked me through, she held my hand.

And she was there when I won my second place award at that same conference where I went as a deer in headlights. And two years later, I walked across the stage and I won second place award in the nonfiction category. And, you know, at that time I was thinking, I don't know that there's going to be a second book. This is really hard and I need to go to business. And I was like, God's saying, you've just started my friend.

So yeah, so I would say have a discovery call, pick about three coaches that you think you could potentially work with and learn about the process and see what's all involved if you dare, because it will slowly talk you out of writing the book. It will. I did not know the process. I learned as I was going. So there are some fabulous coaches out there. No, I am not one of them, but.

If you would like to email me, I am happy to provide you some resources of how you can get started on your publishing journey. Because every story matters. And as you continue on this journey, you're still of course, operating your, your interior design business, the kitchen and bath design business. And you're doing wonderfully with that. And I know you just recently got a new client signed on, which is fantastic. And so congratulations on that. So.

I think that this is a great place for wrapping things up. I do want, of course, people who are listening to this are gonna wanna know where to get this book. And of course, we're gonna put this information in the show notes. But I do wanna say though that Kathryn has been incredibly generous. If you go to her website, she provides the introduction for the book and the first chapter of her book on her website. And that website is KathrynMLackey.com. It'll be in the show notes, but it is K-A-T-H-R-Y-N-M-

Lacky L-A-C-K-E-Y .com. And so the reason why I'm mentioning this though is again, I'm a part of the launch team and in that group, there was a few people in there who were like, I read the first chapter and I'm hooked. It really is that kind of book that the first chapter really draws you in and you want to know the full story. And of course she's alluded to some of the aspects here, but let me tell you, this has action. It has heartbreak

It has everything you're looking for in a fictional book, except that this is actually her life. And it's just such a powerful story. I mean, like we're talking the FBI and everything. It's a whole thing. So if you go to her website, you can actually download the introduction in the first chapter and get a little bit of a taste for it. And then there's also a link there where you can purchase the book. But I also wanted to say that if you purchase the book after listening to this podcast, here's what I would like you to do. I would like you to email Kathryn.

a copy of your receipt and she will donate the proceeds of that book to Operation Underground Railroad, which is an advocate organization for children sold into sex trafficking to support a growing sex industry. you will be not only helping Kathryn's career as an author, of course, and helping yourself by reading this book and all of the great insights that she shares in it.

but you'll also be helping to save others from a life of sex trafficking, of being trafficked. and, and Kathryn, that's incredibly, incredibly generous for you. Did I miss anything on that? Yes. If they help me with a review so we can reach more people through the algorithms on Amazon, that would be my gift.

That's a great point. Because you know, I'm always asking you guys for reviews on this podcast and we all know reviews are everything. And if you don't have a habit of reviewing the books that you read, the podcast that you listen to, the businesses that you visit, I encourage everyone here to get into that habit as well, because that is something that's, it is the least cost you can spend on someone to support them is the easiest way to support someone else. Yeah. takes one minute. It takes one minute and support that person.

so that they continue on to help more people and the word spreads. Absolutely. Yeah. I can't wait to go and add my review to that list as well. I appreciate the reminder for that. thank you. Any final words you want to share with our audience here, Kathryn? I am just grateful to be on this podcast to share my message of hope.

With women, it's not a message of catastrophe, although it was at one time. it's, you know, 18 years ago, I prayed every day that God would show me how something good could come out of something bad. And I prayed it all through the struggles for years and decades. And I feel like he's finally at a point where he's going to deliver that answer. And that's what I'm looking forward to. So bless you for having me.

on your podcast. Bless you for walking this journey with me. It's been a privilege. It's been, like I said before, it's been my honor. I've enjoyed watching you on this journey and big things are going to be happening. And this book is just the beginning of it. So thank you so much for joining me today. And so listen, if you are listening to this podcast and what we're seeing here is resonating with you today, as I've already said, go on and review it, subscribe to us on your favorite podcast platform. But one of the best things that you can also do, and the same thing goes for Kathryn's book here is,

share with someone you know can benefit from it. That is one of the most powerful things that you can do for someone that you care about is to share the message. So until next time everyone keep thriving.