Kristen Bell and Dax Shepard shared how they're connecting as a family, two weeks after Shepard opened up about his opioid relapse.
At marketing summit Advertising Week 2020, the couple revealed that they're implementing daily gratitude practices with their kids, 5-year-old Delta and 7-year-old Lincoln.
"Dax has suggested a couple times, 'Let's just name three things we're grateful for,'" Bell said on Thursday, Oct. 8. "I am shocked at how into that our girls have gotten."
She went on, "We're in the bed sometimes at night, they will say, ‘Does anyone want to talk about what they're grateful for?' And immediately [my] mom heart goes crazy, and I'm like, 'Sure, if you do,' trying to act cool."
Shepard said that expressing what you're thankful for is encouraged by the 12 Step program, which was created by the founders of Alcoholics Anonymous to help overcome addiction.
"We've been trying to move it up to the morning, as it's been recommended to me by, well, the 12 Step program is very into that," the Parenthood alum said. "As soon as you start the day, there's the three blessings, there's a lot of different traditions that incorporate a morning gratitude list."
The 45-year-old dad added, "It has a huge impact on me and it seems to work for the kids as well."
Their ritual is also based on a Friday tradition at their girls' school, which Bell has described as "their rose, their bud and their thorn."
"They get to talk about their rose, their favorite thing of the week or the day. [And] their thorn, which is, as a child, it could be something that you didn't like, but as you grow, it should be something you could have improved upon," the co-founder of baby brand Hello Bello said.
Shepard jumped in, "Currently, it's just a grievance generally. Occasionally there's a self-improvement aspect."
The final aspect of the practice is the bud or bloom, something they're looking forward to. "And they've really gotten into that. We used to do it at dinner time and now we do it in the bed," Bell, 40, said.
The family opened up about their gratitude rituals after Shepard revealed he had relapsed starting around 2012. He explained he had been eight years sober, but then he got in a motorcycle accident and his dad started undergoing cancer treatment. Shepard began to take Vicodin to manage his pain while his father was taking Percocet.
"The no. 1 thing we had in common was we were both f--king addicts and we had never used anything together," Shepard said on the Sept. 25 episode of his podcast, Armchair Expert. "And we sat there stoned and looked at the lake. And in that moment, I felt elation and I was just happy."
Since then, if he would injure himself, he would get into the same "cycle." About six months ago, he was hurt again and started "getting shadier and shadier." For the past eight weeks, his usage had increased, and "I'm now just taking 30 mil Oxys that I've bought."
He admitted his addiction to co-host Monica Padman, started to get help and came clean about it all. "It's the only experience I can remember having that was just grace, the definition of grace," Shepard said. "And it was very emotional. It was a really, really surreal kind of experience."
On Sept. 28, Shepard thanked his fans for their messages of support. "I want to say thanks to all the people that have been so unbelievably lovely to us," he said. "I am really, really grateful, and there's so many beautiful, nice people."
Revisit Shepard's quotes about sobriety here.