Coming Up for Air — A Toolkit to Help with Your Loved One's Recovery from Addiction & Mental Illness

Podcast 84

With your best Allies

From Allies in Recovery

In their work with families of addicted loved ones, Kayla and Dominique have observed how certain patterns are mirrored. In a nutshell, our loved ones with SUD become fixated on their substance of choice, and they become compulsive about using it. Over time, the family member often becomes fixated on their addicted loved one, and finds themselves compulsively trying to fix the situation. Knowing this can be useful if you're ready to effect change... 

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(35 min)  Dominique joins Kayla and Laurie and pushes last week's conversation a bit deeper (episode #81).

You will hear more concrete examples of how to implement what Laurie calls "the Big Pause" and how to recognize when you're being triggered into a crisis reaction.

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(29 min)   Kayla and Laurie dive into the issue 'When crisis mode becomes chronic.' They look into WHY you don't want that, including the neuro-science behind it (cortisol levels).  "Fight or flight is an unsustainable state," Kayla points out. If it has become your new normal, know that you're not doing yourself, or your loved one, any favors.

Poking fun at her own tendency to want to "fix" situations and wield her baseball bat, Kayla reminds us that (unless it's actually our job), we are NOT first responders.  Laurie describes the days when she was desperately calling her son's drug dealers or lurking in their neighborhoods, when he'd gone missing.

Learn why Laurie and Kayla are both huge fans of "the pause." And why it's sometimes important to embrace the "I don't know."

When our thoughts and feelings are out of control, we often respond by trying to try to fix or control the situation with our loved one, but that is often simply not possible. However, it IS possible to override the out-of-control feelings, to learn the skills to calm ourselves down.

Our hosts help you understand how to identify and differentiate "crisis" and "chronic" and what to do once you've determined what you're facing in a given moment.

Join our Member Site today to take full advantage of Allies in Recovery’s program, including 8 video modules, three blogs, and dialogue with experts in the fields of treatment and recovery.

Learn more @ alliesinrecovery.net   Membership is FREE during the COVID-19 pandemic.

to come(35 min) The family of a loved one using substances often receives discouraging messages like "there's nothing you can do to change things" or "just wait until they hit rock bottom."

The CRAFT method flies in the face of those cultural beliefs. At Allies in Recovery, we give families a framework, a toolkit, a system to put in place. Results don't appear overnight, though as our founder, Dominique Simon-Levine, often says, "CRAFT is the fastest way through. Even if you feel things need an urgent response."

This episode focuses on "Low-Hanging Fruit," meaning: Give yourself some easy-to-accomplish, satisfying tasks that you can do today, to help move the situation forward with your loved one.

You absolutely can help to move things forward. There absolutely are action items that you can do TODAY. And you absolutely can influence your loved one in the direction of treatment and recovery. Science has shown this to be true. Listen in!

Join our Member Site today to take full advantage of Allies in Recovery’s program, including 8 video modules, three blogs, and dialogue with experts in the fields of treatment and recovery.

Learn more @ alliesinrecovery.net   Membership is FREE during the COVID-19 pandemic.

When your loved one plays the "Blame" card or shames you or guilts you, what are your options?

This topic actually has many more layers than you may think. And yes, there are some concrete and powerful things you can do to deflect the blame or guilt they're trying to send your way.

Our hosts explain why the "Blame Game" is actually a very smart and adaptive technique that our loved ones with Substance Use use to self-soothe.

Kayla gives us some of the strongest cards to use when they pull out their well-worn Blame card.

Laurie shares her tips for empowering both yourself, and your loved one, in these sticky, tricky conversations (both face-to-face and over the phone).

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Why all the hubbub about stigmatizing language when it comes to Substance Use?  Is "addiction" a bad word?

Laurie MacDougall is author of the article "The Power of Language," on the Allies in Recovery blog, which explores how removing stigma from the language we use (ie, Substance Use vs. Substance Abuse) can have dramatic effects on the care and treatment people receive.

Laurie explains her position (and how she came to it) to colleagues et co-hosts Kayla and Dominique, who at first admit they'd rather stick to their established ways of referring to Addiction / Substance Use Disorder / Opiate Use Disorder / Alcohol Use Disorder, etc.

Will Laurie win them over?

Join our Member Site today to take full advantage of Allies in Recovery’s program, including 8 video modules, three blogs, and dialogue with experts in the fields of treatment and recovery.

Learn more @ alliesinrecovery.net   Membership is FREE during the COVID-19 pandemic.

What does 'Identity' have to do with substance use in the family?

Here are a couple examples of how our identity can trip us up:

- I'm so enmeshed with my loved one and their substance use that when you ask me how I am, I tell you about how my loved one is doing, or I'm incapable of knowing what I am actually feeling, or I figure, it doesn't really matter.

- I may believe that I have the responsibility of punishing, or creating consequences for my loved one's substance use, and I may keep returning to this approach despite the fact that I see it's not helping my loved one or our communications.

When we're too attached to a role we've been playing, or think we should play, this often puts blinders on us... we are much less able to take an honest look at the dynamics between ourselves and our loved one.

And why do we want to have a clearer vision of the dynamics? In order to change things up. Even though, as Kayla says, "changing your identity is the scariest things in the world."

We hope that listening to this episode will help you see why it's still important to consider shifting some parts of your identity that simply aren't serving you or anyone else.

Join our Member Site today to take full advantage of Allies in Recovery’s program, including 8 video modules, three blogs, and dialogue with experts in the fields of treatment and recovery.

Learn more @ alliesinrecovery.net   Membership is FREE during the COVID-19 pandemic.

How does shame fit in to Substance Use and the family system? We're not talking about the shame you feel when you've done something regrettable, but rather the deeper, internalized belief that so many of us have, that says "There's something wrong with me." Kayla calls it "character assassination".

Shame plays a prominent role where substance use has become problematic: the person misusing substances often feels shame about being stuck in the pattern, and the family often falls into the trap of blaming themselves for where their child/family member is, which they may feel reflects badly on them. It can be a real shame-fest.

Join our hosts for this illuminating conversation. You'll learn to start peeling away the layers and get to the core of the issue.

Why is this important? Why is it one of the things we ask you to look at when you're working our program for families? Because the family works as a system. And the more you learn to see and understand your role in the system, the more power you'll have to shift the dynamic. This does work!

Join our Member Site today to take full advantage of Allies in Recovery’s program, including 8 video modules, three blogs, and dialogue with experts in the fields of treatment and recovery.

Learn more @ alliesinrecovery.net   Membership is FREE during the COVID-19 pandemic.

A continuation of last week's podcast, we get in depth about the intricacies of dealing with a loved one in a situation of limited connection navigating the realities of the dynamics in

how do you communicate and draw a loved one back in and stay connected and draw em back in when theres limited communication

or stuck with only text messaging and also what do you do when you finally have that commmunication with a call with your loved on and they are beligerent and treating you like a whipping post

Join our Member Site today to take full advantage of Allies in Recovery’s program, including 8 video modules, three blogs, and dialogue with experts in the fields of treatment and recovery.

Learn more @ alliesinrecovery.net   Membership is FREE during the COVID-19 pandemic.