Episode #313
The Hidden Trauma of Loving an Addict, with Dana Killion
What if the most damaging thing that ever happened to you was not the dramatic moment - the affair, the rehab call, the divorce papers - but the slow, invisible erosion of yourself that happened so gradually you did not even notice until you were already gone? Dana Killion spent 25 years in a marriage to a high-functioning alcoholic who also had a secret sexual life. She did not collapse. She did not run. She did the work of trying to understand, trying to rebuild, and eventually trying to save herself. And then she wrote about all of it - so no woman ever has to go through it alone again. SUMMARY & GUEST INTRO If you have ever set yourself aside for someone else's pain and looked up one day to find you had completely disappeared - Dana Killion wrote this episode for you. She is the author of Where the Shadows Dance and the upcoming Becoming Unbreakable: A Big Sister's Guide to Trauma, out September 2026. A former apparel industry executive who turned to writing first as escape and then as purpose, Dana has survived the collapse of a long marriage, the loss of both parents, a cross-country reinvention, and the death of her eldest son. She now works as what she calls a trauma big sister - not a therapist, not a coach, but someone who has been through it and will hold your hand while you find your way through too. This one is going to stay with people. INSIDE THE EPISODE He Got Sober. She Got Broken. The line on Dana's website that stops everyone cold - and the one Erica starts with. When your entire life is organized around keeping someone else alive, you disappear. Dana breaks down how that happens, why it happens below the surface of awareness, and what it feels like to suddenly see yourself clearly for the first time in years. The Secret Life She Did Not Know About. While her husband was in rehab finally taking his sobriety seriously, Dana learned he had also been living a secret sexual life - a large number of partners she had never known about. She walks through what it is like when the ground shifts under 25 years of memory all at once. This Is Trauma Too. Most people think of trauma as a sudden, acute event. Chronic, quiet, invisible trauma - the kind that comes from decades of loving someone who is slowly destroying themselves - does not look the same. Dana took years to name what had happened to her as trauma. She gives every woman listening permission to do the same. I Will Not Let This Man Destroy Me. Lying in bed night after night, Dana repeated this to herself until it became the foundation of everything she built next. Determination that looked like stubbornness. A refusal to become one of the women she had seen who never recovered. This is the turning point. Why Am I Staying? Not a one-time question. A daily one. Dana filed for divorce and yanked the papers. She ran out the door and came back. She makes the case that none of this is failure - it is the non-linear, painful, honest work of a woman trying to figure out who she is and what she can live with. Each Trauma Built the Tools for the Next. Dana lost her son three years ago. It was the most recent of the traumas and the most devastating. But she found herself handling it with what she describes as more ease than she expected - because every previous loss had quietly built something in her. That is the thesis of Becoming Unbreakable. RESOURCES & LINKS Pre-order Becoming Unbreakable (Sept 2026): https://amzn.to/4f7x9XT Where the Shadows Dance (memoir): https://www.danakillion.com/ Dana Killion Website: https://www.danakillion.com/ Dana on Substack: https://danakillion.substack.com/ LinkedIn: Dana Killion: https://www.linkedin.com/in/dana-killion-936214263/ ERICA'S RESOURCES & LINKS Start small with me inside HER Jumpstart: https://her-collective.mn.co/plans/1985289?bundle_token=60b2c61d62213cdbd16d437cdc0e4204&utm_source=manual Grab your copy of THE AI GAP: https://amzn.to/3OAXAdL Get my first book, Glass Ceilings and Sticky Floors: https://amzn.to/4uvjbE5 Follow me on LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/ericarooney/ Follow me on Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/ericaandersonrooney/ Check out my TikTok: https://www.tiktok.com/@ericaandersonrooney
