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

How do you deal with having hard feelings around your loved one's substance use? Kayla, Carolyn, Bridget, Elizabeth, and Kenny discuss their experiences and feelings of anxiety, frustration, and fear and their tools for handling the situation.

The Allies in Recovery program and the CRAFT Method for families seeking to help a loved one with addiction, teach concrete skills to shift the dynamics between you and your loved one. Paying closer attention to your own feelings, and taking a bit of distance from them in order to not add unnecessary weight to them, is part of our online learning program.

It's easy to feel like you have to be perfect with CRAFT, perfect with your Loved One to be successful. But perfectionism gets in the way of connection. It can blind us, keep us from seeing our loved one fully.

Your acknowledging things not going the way you wanted, and taking responsibility for your behaviors that don’t work—is all part of fostering connection.

If your Loved One feels connection and love, that’s the beginning of treatment. And it means healing can begin in your relationship.

Our Families Speak series features a wonderful team of people navigating life with an addicted loved one. They are all members of Allies in Recovery, an online platform providing training, guidance, support and resources for families ready to shift the dynamic with their loved one struggling with substance use.

With grace, compassion, humility and deep generosity, the Families Speak team shares openly with Coming Up for Air listeners. We can thus benefit from their experience, their process, and the work they do with group facilitator and psychotherapist, Kayla Solomon.

Visit alliesinrecovery.net to learn about our membership options, read our blog posts, meet our team, and much more!

If we're doing too much for our loved ones with substance use disorder, we'll never truly know how capable they are. We need to step back to see their capability and witness their choices, realizing that they have their own motivations and values. CRAFT is about creating a strong connection without necessarily doing things for them. This is a process, one which respects the other person. Do the things that feel right, but not if you're stepping over a line. You may try and fail, or need to apologize and take responsibility. You can change your actions, do things and also, importantly, not do things.

Our Families Speak series features a wonderful team of people navigating life with an addicted loved one. They are all members of Allies in Recovery, an online platform providing training, guidance, support and resources for families ready to shift the dynamic with their loved one struggling with substance use.
With grace, compassion, humility and deep generosity, the Families Speak team shares openly with Coming Up for Air listeners. We can thus benefit from their experience, their process, and the work they do with group facilitator and psychotherapist, Kayla Solomon.
Visit alliesinrecovery.net to learn about our membership options, read our blog posts, meet our team, and much more!

Kayla and Isabel discuss the complications of rewarding your Loved One with addiction, in the context of a partner relationship. How does it affect time with children? How about intimacy?

Partner CRAFT is the podcast series by Allies in Recovery that focuses on applying the CRAFT method with a romantic partner (or ex-partner) who struggles with addiction. Co-hosts Kayla Solomon (psychotherapist, IMAGO counselor and Group Facilitator for Allies in Recovery) speaks with Isabel Cooney (Allies in Recovery team member, and ex-partner of an addicted Loved One) about the ways the CRAFT approach can be different when your loved one is your partner, rather than your child.

A membership at Allies in Recovery gives you unlimited access to:

• Support groups for connection & guidance
• Our online learning platform to teachyou through the CRAFT skillset step-by-step
• A Q & A blog where you can ask questions and receive tailored guidance ... and much more!

Visit Allies in Recovery to explore membership options, read our blog, meet our team, and start your journey today.

Kayla and Isabel discuss the challenges of early recovery. What are realistic expectations to have of our loved ones in this period? What can we do as a family member to support them and, importantly, to keep ourselves in check? It's helpful to know what "early recovery" means -- there's a spectrum that goes from complete abstinence to harm reduction (using less). Recovery in the largest sense is engaging in a process to heal.

Partner CRAFT is the podcast series by Allies in Recovery that focuses on applying the CRAFT method with a romantic partner (or ex-partner) who struggles with addiction. Co-hosts Kayla Solomon (psychotherapist, IMAGO counselor and Group Facilitator for Allies in Recovery) speaks with Isabel Cooney (Allies in Recovery team member, and ex-partner of an addicted Loved One) about the ways the CRAFT approach can be different when your loved one is your partner, rather than your child.

A membership at Allies in Recovery gives you unlimited access to:

·      Support groups for connection & guidance

·      Our online learning platform to teach you through the CRAFT skillset step-by-step

·      A Q & A blog where you can ask questions and receive tailored guidance

·      And much more!

Visit Allies in Recovery to exploremembership options, read our blog, meet our team, and start your journey today.

Oy, the holidays. This time of year can be a time full of triggers, for our Loved One with Substance Use Disorder, but also for their family members. It's also a time where we can get disconcerting questions about our how our Loved Ones have been doing. And so many of us have that "Hallmark holiday" somewhere in our minds, which can keep our expectations unrealistic.

Three family members join Kayla to share wisdom and experiences around the holidays. They talk about what is triggering and for whom, and explore creating new traditions in lieu of old ones.

Maintaining connections—with boundaries and without enmeshment—is an important part of the work. When ties are blurry, it's harmful to your Loved One. It can make them feel guilt and shame about what they're doing to you.

One of the first aspects of CRAFT work is addressing separation and connection.

Our Families Speak series features a wonderful team of people navigating life with an addicted Loved One. They are all members of Allies in Recovery⁠ , an online platform providing training, guidance, support and resources for families ready to shift the dynamic with their Loved One struggling with substance use.

With grace, compassion, humility and deep generosity, the Families Speak team shares openly with Coming Up for Air listeners. We can thus benefit from their experience, their process, and the work they do with group facilitator and psychotherapist, Kayla Solomon.

Visit Allies in Recovery to learn about our membership options, read our blog posts, meet our team, and much more!

Recovery is progress, not perfection, and it doesn’t look the same for everyone. As the family of a Loved One with substance use disorder (SUD), it can be tempting to impose our own expectations onto our Loved One. But as we ease up on expectations, we're taking pressure off our Loved One, allowing them space to try things and see how it goes. Sometimes mistakes can become the best learning moments.

The Allies in Recovery stance we teach families is an invitation to: shift our expectations, question our own perceptions of what we're observing, pay more attention to what's positive, and acknowledge it, while becoming more keenly aware of our own feelings. In so doing, we give our Loved Ones space to grow and we become more curious about what growth looks like from their perspective. Changing ourself makes room for our Loved One to change as well.

Our Families Speak series features a wonderful team of people navigating life with an addicted Loved One. They are all members of Allies in Recovery, an online platform providing proven, research-based training, guidance, support and resources for families with a Loved One struggling with substance use. 

Alongside psychotherapist Kayla Solomon, they openly share their experiences, insights, and the CRAFT-based tools that have helped them shift the dynamic at home. 

A membership at Allies in Recovery gives you unlimited access to: 
✔ Step-by-step training in CRAFT through our online platform 
✔ Support groups and a community that understands what you're going through 
✔ A Q&A blog with expert guidance 
✔ And much more! 

Visit Allies in Recovery today and start creating change in your family. 

It’s incredibly hard to have a Loved One who’s experiencing homelessness. Our hosts—Hazel, Kevin, and Greer—join Kayla Solomon to discuss their experiences with their Loved Ones and offer hard-won advice. They say it’s important to try to create an environment of openness, connection, and availability—up to a point. But it’s also important to have boundaries. If you’re not giving advice or intervening in ways your loved one is not asking for, they get the life experience of their choices, but they also have loving connections available. When they’re ready, you’re ready to help them with a list of resources.

Our Families Speak series features a wonderful team of people navigating life with an addicted Loved One. They are all members of Allies in Recovery, an online platform providing proven, research-based training, guidance, support and resources for families with a Loved One struggling with substance use. 

Alongside psychotherapist Kayla Solomon, they openly share their experiences, insights, and the CRAFT-based tools that have helped them shift the dynamic at home. 

A membership at Allies in Recovery gives you unlimited access to: 
✔ Step-by-step training in CRAFT through our online platform 
✔ Support groups and a community that understands what you're going through 
✔ A Q&A blog with expert guidance 
✔ And much more! 

Visit Allies in Recovery today and start creating change in your family. 

What you don’t do – like get caught up in being a superhero, or telling your Loved One what they “should do” – can help your relationship emerge as a partnership.

If we develop good relationships, we have power. If we have the capacity to change, we have power. If we have awareness, we can make choices, and that gives us power, too. By accepting the invitation to change ourselves, we will have the greatest impact on those around us.

The Allies in Recovery program uses the CRAFT Method to teach the precious skills of pausing, reflecting and considering next moves. This in itself will greatly shift the dynamics between you and your Loved One struggling with addiction.

Our Families Speak series features a wonderful team of people navigating life with an addicted Loved One. They are all members of Allies in Recovery, an online platform providing proven, research-based training, guidance, support and resources for families with a Loved One struggling with substance use. 

Alongside psychotherapist Kayla Solomon, they openly share their experiences, insights, and the CRAFT-based tools that have helped them shift the dynamic at home. 

A membership at Allies in Recovery gives you unlimited access to:  ✔ Step-by-step training in CRAFT through our online platform  ✔ Support groups and a community that understands what you're going through  ✔ A Q&A blog with expert guidance  ✔ And much more! 

Visit ⁠Allies in Recovery⁠ today and start creating change in your family. 

Self-care is a pillar of CRAFT; helping yourself is essential to helping your Loved One. A lot of CRAFT focuses on a parent trying to help an adult child, so how do we shift things in a partner relationship so we're able to play the starring role in our own lives? Is there room to focus on ourselves when our loved one is not showing up in the relationship, family, or household?

Partner CRAFT is a podcast series by Allies in Recovery⁠ that focuses on applying the CRAFT method with a romantic partner (or ex-partner) struggling with addiction. Co-hosts Kayla Solomon (psychotherapist, IMAGO counselor, and Allies in Recovery group facilitator) and Isabel Cooney (Allies in Recovery team member and ex-partner of a loved one with addiction) discuss the unique challenges of using CRAFT in these relationships—and how it can transform them. 

A membership at Allies in Recovery gives you unlimited access to: 
✔ Step-by-step CRAFT training tailored for families and partners 
✔ Support groups and a community that understands 
✔ A Q&A blog with expert guidance 
✔ And much more! 

Visit Allies in Recovery to learn about our membership options, read our blog posts, meet our team, and much more!