Ep 422 She Thought He Was Just a Jerk: The Hidden Addiction That Nearly Cost Them w/ Matt & Paige

About this episode

Zach discusses the complex journey of a couple navigating addiction and recovery, highlighting their struggles and growth over 25 years.

Zach sits down with Matt and Paige, a married couple from the DFW area who have been together since they were 14 years old, and who now host their own podcast for spouses and partners of people navigating addiction. What sounds like a high school sweetheart story quickly opens into something far more complicated: a decade-long opioid addiction, financial abuse, gaslighting, panic attacks, and a slow, hard-won rebuild that took most of their adult lives. Matt frames their relationship in three chapters: young and naive kids figuring out what love even is, the dark middle years where addiction quietly dismantled the life they were trying to build, and the current chapter where, for the first time in 25 years, they describe themselves as genuinely on equal footing. Paige's side of the story carries the weight of what spouses often carry alone. She didn't know it was addiction for years. She thought he was just treating her badly. And when his recovery finally stabilized, her body held the bill: panic attacks, rage, and a grief that had nowhere to go while things were still dangerous. She eventually came to a kind of peace, but only after Matt began holding real accountability, not…

People in this episode

Host: Zach

Guests: Matt, Paige

Topics covered

• addiction
• marriage
• recovery
• mental health
• communication
• family dynamics

Keywords

• opioid addiction
• financial abuse
• gaslighting
• panic attacks
• marital recovery
• spousal support

Mentioned in this episode

Places: DFW

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