Siblinghood of Recovery

Join me in a fabulous interview with Catherine Borgman-Arboleda, Founder of Collaborative-Insights Coaching, as we cover the vital importance of self-work. We hear that term everywhere, this Episode digs in to what self-work comprises of and how Catherine's insights can lead to a tremendous amount of healing, letting go false expectations and developing a deep connection with our loved ones, no matter where they are at in the walk of Recovery. I hope you gain as much knowledge as I did in this insightful dialogue. Please visit to Catherine's website for resources at https://www.collaborative-insights.com/.

2:15 - Introduction to Catherine's Global work on Policy and the work 'on ourselves'.
3:00 - Catherine's daughter's journey
3:30 - How it's easier to change a law than change our children
4:45 - Her daughter's journey through depression, self-harm, identity-issues
5:15 - The 'Fixing' journey
6:00 - Buddhism and discovering Dr. Shefali Tsabary , the concept of our children being sovereign beings and deconstructing the story that only we are the only teachers in our relationship with our Children
 7:15 - Shifting the definition of 'Success' in the defined story of raising children
8:15 - Being aware of our own Agenda and feeling, instead of managing, our fears
10:00 - How we cannot orchestrate someone's healing
11:00 - Grieving the false expectations we've been fed in the Recovery process
12:15 - Father's and Mother's 'Letting Go' and the differences
13:30 - Thanking God that the Child is not buying INTO the concept of Expectations (or The Matrix)
14:15 - Conquering the Fear
15:15 - Trying to Control
15:30 - How fear blocks Connection
16:30 - Changing the External verses the Internal Environment
18:30 - How Culture can prioritize the "Wrong" traits
18:45 - Dr. Gabor Mate's training and Genetic transference of Addiction
18:55 - Dr. Gabor Mate's book, The Myth of Normal
20:50 - Going inward to heal, Wisdom Traditions, allowing the uncomfortable emotions
22:50 - The Efficient Parent, Rescuing, Solving the Problems and how that may not benefit your Child
24:35 - NARM Therapy identifying fear, sadness, anger and which emotions are the 'true' feeling we are experiencing
25:10 - Conscious Coaching and Catherine's resources to finding more self-awareness and shifting into greater Wisdom
28:30 - Our Children's self-blame and how our words are not magic to heal that shame
29: 45 - Can our Face be a Trigger to past strong emotions?
31:20 - The Energy you bring to engagements with our Children: holding the image of possibility
33:15 - The falseness of 'The Vision Board'
34:30 - How our efficiency counters our Children's Agency
36:45 - The Concept of 'Coming Home Contracts' and Catherine's Blog

Thank you for listening and please visit www.siblinghoodofrecovery.com for free resources, links to organizations, groups and individuals who can offer help in the Journey of Recovery towards healing from substance use disorders. If you like this Podcast, please leave a rating on wherever you're listening. It will help to get the word out.

If there is one message I can leave you with, the best you can offer your loved one battling addiction is love and a healthier you.

Walk gently, my friend.

Welcome to a Mom's Recovery Journey. Tracy offers a rich perspective on how Wilderness Treatment not only changed her daughter's life but positively impacted the entire Family System. The goal, as always, is to share experience, resources, and connection. We hope you'll find information here to help your own Recovery Journey.

1:40 - Tracy's Journey: the Pandemic's impact on her daughter's anxiety, depression, and safety.
3:30 - What Tracy would say to her 2020-self.
4:45 - Decision making with and without fear.
6:30 - Researching Residential Treatment Center (RTC): how to utilize communities, parents, interviewing the RTC Therapist, and creating your own foundation of personal support.
7:30 - How Al Anon and AA Meetings can heal the Family System.
10:10 - How an Educational Consultant can facilitate RTC engagement.
12:30 - Tracy's experience with the Oasis Treatment Center in Utah and Transport Companies.
15:00 - RTC research: go deeper than the reviews. 
16:00 - What RTC's can teach parents about Self-Regulation and Self-Care.
20:00 - Discovering how what we lack impacts our children.
22:00 - How our children become a mirror and we can't just "fix" the mirror(see Episode 36 with Kevin Johnson).
23:30 - The shift from chaos to healing for Tracy's Family at Open Sky Wilderness.
25:00 - The Family Quest experience.
28:00 - Regulation in the Treatment Center industry.
29:15 - Wilderness Treatment Center costs, insurance, Scholarships like Sky's the Limit Fund, and negotiating the daily rate.
30:15 - Preventative Care cost vs RTC costs.
32:30 - Adult Children of Alcoholics & Dysfunctional Families The Loving Parent Guidebook and how this can break down Family System dysfunction.
33:15 - How Therapy is becoming more common, even with the NFL recommending BetterHelp .
35:30 - Tracy's recommended resources, Brad Reedy's Finding You Podcast, and books, The Audacity to be You and The Journey of the Heroic Parent. Krissy Pozatek's The Parallel Process. Daniel J. Siegel, M.D., and Mary Hartzell, M.Ed.'s book Parenting from the Inside Out. Tim R. Thayne PhD.'s book Not by Chance.

Thank you for listening and please visit www.siblinghoodofrecovery.com for free resources, links to organizations, groups and individuals who can offer help in the Journey of Recovery towards healing from substance use disorders. If you like this Podcast, please leave a rating on wherever you're listening. It will help to get the word out.

If there is one message I can leave you with, the best you can offer your loved one battling addiction is love and a healthier you.

Walk gently, my friend.

Welcome to 2024! If you're listening to this, you may have a child in recovery, in the chaos of substance use, or you are engaged with a Treatment professional to help your child. Here are Resources for you, as a Parent, to continue your own growth which is the best thing you can do as you support your child's journey through addiction.

Resources
4:10 - Local Al Anon Groups & Meetings
5:00 - Social Media Challenges: the mistake of perceiving your children as a Family Asset instead of an individual, the easy route of comparing your Family to the "perfect Families" portrayed on Social Media.
7:00 - Understanding the dysfunction we as Parents bring to the Family system.
7:40 - A commitment to doing your own work to understand yourself and avoid the Blind Spots of self-awareness.
8:25 - The value an Al-Anon Group can offer specific to treatment resources
9:20 - How to understand what a Treatment Center's focus is on and determining if that program is good for your child.
10:00 - Books and Podcasts, Evoke Therapy, Hopestream, Buddy C Tao of our Understanding, and the references available on my 'Educational Resources page on the Siblinghood of Recovery site. 
10:515 - Networking with Other Parents who are in the same position, i.e., have a child in treatment or is working through a child with substance use disorder.
 
12:00 - Resources Recap
1) Go to 12 Step Meetings
2) Network at 12 Step Meetings
3) Manage Social Media seeking to filter healthy input into your brain
4) Separate your Self from your Child
5) Understand the Dysfunction You are bringing to the Family System
6) Stop thinking Other Families are Perfect (now!)
7) Commit to dealing and healing your own dysfunction
8) Vet any Therapist you plan to engage with for your Child
9) Research Treatment Centers to ensure it is a fit for your Child
10) Books (read) and Podcasts (listen) can further educate you for your Journey
11) Get a Lifeline, someone you can call, when you are freaking out to help talk you out of your Anxiety tree

Thank you for listening and please visit www.siblinghoodofrecovery.com for free resources, links to organizations, groups and individuals who can offer help in the Journey of Recovery towards healing from substance use disorders. If you like this Podcast, please leave a rating on wherever you're listening. It will help to get the word out.

If there is one message I can leave you with, the best you can offer your loved one battling addiction is love and a healthier you.

Walk gently, my friend.

For my amazing Recovery community, this is being dropped one day before my Loved One's Birthday. What an amazingly beautiful and hard Journey this has been and I can't think of a better day to publish this one as I watch my Loved One create his own Path. In tandem, I also continue to 'Do The Work' and know I will never take my foot off the gas as I have oh-so much to learn.  I'll be back soon with research, resources, links and more but, for now, I hope you enjoy this interview of how I got here from there. 

As always, sending big wishes for self-care and love, and wishing everyone strength and wellness.

Thank you for listening and please visit www.siblinghoodofrecovery.com for free resources, links to organizations, groups and individuals who can offer help in the Journey of Recovery towards healing from substance use disorders. If you like this Podcast, please leave a rating on wherever you're listening. It will help to get the word out.

If there is one message I can leave you with, the best you can offer your loved one battling addiction is love and a healthier you.

Walk gently, my friend.

Abigail Batchelder, PhD, MPH is an Assistant Director of Behavioral Medicine Program for Stigma and Substance Use Research and Assistant Professor in Psychology, Harvard Medical School, as well as the Director of the Substance Use Scientific Working Group, at Harvard University's Center for AIDS Research.

What grabbed my attention of the research article, The shame spiral of addiction: Negative self-conscious emotion and substance use, was the succinct conclusion of, "Shame and guilt are barriers to reducing stimulant use, and expanded efforts are needed to mitigate the deleterious effects of these self-conscious emotions in recovery from a stimulant use disorder." This is what so many of us learn in the Recovery process and, as relayed in the podcast, is cited so many times in our 12 Step mantras: reduce the shame to increase your progress towards healing.

I listen to Abby and have hope that the system we've built to react to substance use disorders can instead shift towards addressing the root cause of so many addiction challenges we face in our world today: mental health. Thank you for listening.

1:40 - Introduction to Abby, her work as a Harvard Researcher and her role at Massachusetts's General Hospital
2:30 - Abby's CAFLIN Distinguished Scholar Award
4:00 - Shame and the impact on Recovery
5:15 - Strategies for bringing evidenced based mental health care to people who have limited access
5:30 - The convoluted misconception that one has to deal with substance use disorder prior to obtaining mental health support (both can be addressed conjointly), and the danger of not intervening with both strategies (harm reduction).
8:00 - The impact of self-compassion during intervention and Project Matter
9:00 - Bringing concepts of intervention to the population, based on self compassion, to mitigate, 'When I feel bad about myself, I use more.'
12:15 - Gathering patterns from the communities Abby serves
16:45 - Shame's manifestation and the impact of self-compassion
17:15 - The complexity of addiction and recovery, how external shame impacts that complexity, and leaning towards humanizing addiction to facilitate recovery
18:15 - Othering
23:15 - Abby's Portfolio of study and community engagement
25:45 - The Trail of Truth
26:45 -  How Abby's lab is on the front line of the addiction community
31:45 - The type of interventions Abby is focused on creating that fit with the community Abby and her colleagues serve

Thank you for listening and please visit www.siblinghoodofrecovery.com for free resources, links to organizations, groups and individuals who can offer help in the Journey of Recovery towards healing from substance use disorders. If you like this Podcast, please leave a rating on wherever you're listening. It will help to get the word out.

If there is one message I can leave you with, the best you can offer your loved one battling addiction is love and a healthier you.

Walk gently, my friend.

MaryBeth lost her son Matt to the disease of addiction. What MaryBeth has done with that loss is nothing short of amazing. The drive to work hard in the arena of Recovery comes from the simple fact that MaryBeth would do anything to ensure a parent never experiences the devastating grief she has felt in losing Matt. This interview covers so much in the walk with addiction as a parent. Ranging from anger, to chaos, to building a community of resources, MaryBeth shares all that she's learned. I know you will benefit from listening to MaryBeth and her limitless ability to give back to the recovery community despite losing Matt. Please join me in sharing her journey. 

2:50 - Mothers for All Paths of Recovery (Facebook Group)
3:00 - Susan Ousterman, another Warrior Mom who lost her son, Tyler, and Founder of Vilomah Memorial Gardens
3:25 - The Trail of Truth as MaryBeth experiences the Memorial Cemetery as a Committee Planner and a Mother who has lost her son. Over 2,000 names will be recognized this year in Washington, DC, September 23rd, 2023.
6:30 - Matt's story.
7:30 - Withdrawing from Oxycodone
10:30 - MaryBeth's quest for Legislative action regarding Sober Home certification and licensing
11:00 - Delaware's Legislative passing of HS214, signed 8/1/2023.
14:15 - Shame connected to the disease of addiction
18:15 - Resources for those struggling
18:45 - MaryBeth's fight with Cancer
19:15 - How fighting the disease of addiction can make the Family system ugly
21:30 - Building community
24:00 - Building your lifeline, those who you can call any time, any day, any where
27:45 - The Family system evolves
31:00 - MAT, Medically Assisted Treatment
32:45 - Supporting your loved one's journey
33:45 - Keeping the lines of communication open
34:45 - How pushing the punishment directive can lead to death
36:00 - Know your addicted love one already feels shame, love them where they are at
38:30 - The tipping point in getting Legislation passed
39:40 - How the CEOs of Treatment Centers and good Sober Homes supported the Legislation
41:00 - Other states looking at similar Legislation
41:20 - The FARR in Florida (my home state!)
41:50 - MaryBeth's advice to parents who have lost their child to the disease of addiction
43:40 - MaryBeth reads the Preface of her book, 'Letters to Matt'

Thank you for listening and please visit www.siblinghoodofrecovery.com for free resources, links to organizations, groups and individuals who can offer help in the Journey of Recovery towards healing from substance use disorders. If you like this Podcast, please leave a rating on wherever you're listening. It will help to get the word out.

If there is one message I can leave you with, the best you can offer your loved one battling addiction is love and a healthier you.

Walk gently, my friend.

To have Jackie Werboff on this Podcast is nothing short of an incredible honor. Jackie directly contributed to my own Recovery through an offering space to begin understanding, in the most compassionate of ways, how my own childhood development was impacting the Family System I sought to build. I hope you enjoy this conversation that includes the NeuroAffective Relational Model(NARM) model of Therapy, attunement between parent and child, substance use as self-medication for unmet emotional needs in teens, the value of the 12 Step Program, and more. We explore options to help the Family system through therapy, learning, and relational-model engagement, all of which contribute to becoming healthier humans and healthier parents for our kids. As with each instance of engagement with Jackie, we end with hope. 

1:15 - 2:55 - Dr. Larry Heller, What is NARM?
3:55 - Developmental verses Shock Trauma
5:45 - Mis-attunement
6:30 - Attuning at the parental level
10:15 - The impossibility of being constantly emotionally attuned
11:35 - Self medication specific to substance misuse
12:30 - Unmet needs and emotional pain
12:45 - Strategies: read about the Core Surviving Strategies here
14:10 - The power of words
16:15 - Shame and the impact on Recovery
17:00 - The challenge of behavior in substance misuse and how NARM can help navigate this challenge
19:00 - How Recovery can re-set a Family
19:50 - Addiction is a Family System challenge
20:50 - The dead-end of blame
21:55 - Apologizing as a Parent and the value that offers our Children
23:10 - Accountability
24:20 - The 12 Steps and Recovery
27:00 - NARM Therapy and listening
27:35 - Curiosity and NARM
28:00 - Breaking down the power dynamics in the therapeutic relationship
30:45 - Self regulation and the importance of having a caregiver self-regulate
33:35 - Nervous System Therapeutic approaches (Somatic and Polyvagal)
33:45 - Dr. Stephen Porges
33:50 - The Polyvagal Institute, About Deb
34:30 - Jackie's Contact info at Wide Awake Counseling
35:35 - The Journey

Thank you for listening and please visit www.siblinghoodofrecovery.com for free resources, links to organizations, groups and individuals who can offer help in the Journey of Recovery towards healing from substance use disorders. If you like this Podcast, please leave a rating on wherever you're listening. It will help to get the word out.

If there is one message I can leave you with, the best you can offer your loved one battling addiction is love and a healthier you.

Walk gently, my friend.

Shame-based emotional triggers, linked to substance use, can be detrimental especially if parents employ shame as a behavioral deterrent. Instead, our best offense is to heal ourselves.

Article cited, Published online 2022 Mar 18. doi: 10.1371/journal.pone.0265480, PMCID: PMC8932605, The shame spiral of addiction: Negative self-conscious emotion and substance use.

Thank you for listening and please visit www.siblinghoodofrecovery.com for free resources, links to organizations, groups and individuals who can offer help in the Journey of Recovery towards healing from substance use disorders. If you like this Podcast, please leave a rating on wherever you're listening. It will help to get the word out.

If there is one message I can leave you with, the best you can offer your loved one battling addiction is love and a healthier you.

Walk gently, my friend.

Embarking on a personal journey of recovery from family dysfunction and substance use challenges can offer invaluable lessons. Through our effort to understand why our children are using substances, we must focus on the essential concepts of self-regulation, the impact of our parenting styles, and how we can become better parents through building up our own resilience. I offer up my own experience of learning how crucial it is to manage emotions and learn to focus on the present moment in order to create a safe emotional environment for my Family. Together, as a Siblinghood of Parents in Development, we can navigate through the storm, learn from our past, and pave the way for a healthier future for our children and us.

9:35 - From Parents.com, 'What's Your Parenting Style?'
12:20 - Newport Academy's, 'Resilience Toolkit'

OTHER RELATED LINKS
1) Authoritative Parenting: The Pros and Cons, According to a Child Psychologist
2) What's Your Parenting Style?
3) From the Parenting for Brain website, 'Emotional Regulation in Children | A Complete Guide' - as seen on the American Academy of Pediatrics website, and an excerpt here specific to Substance Use: A child who has poor emotion regulation skills throws tantrums constantly and puts a strain on the parent-child relationship. This can impact the climate of the whole household, including siblings or everyone around them, and lead to a negative spiral.

Similarly, for friendships, kids who don’t have the ability to control their big feelings have fewer social skills. They have a harder time making or keeping friends. The inability to self-regulate big emotions can lead to traits like anger, withdrawal, anxiety, or aggressive behavior.

All this can snowball into further negative consequences: Children who are rejected by their peers are at increased risk of dropping out of school, delinquency, substance abuse, and antisocial behavior problems ​1 ​. Those who are withdrawn and rejected by peers are also more likely to get bullied​ 2 ​.

Thank you for listening and please visit www.siblinghoodofrecovery.com for free resources, links to organizations, groups and individuals who can offer help in the Journey of Recovery towards healing from substance use disorders. If you like this Podcast, please leave a rating on wherever you're listening. It will help to get the word out.

If there is one message I can leave you with, the best you can offer your loved one battling addiction is love and a healthier you.

Walk gently, my friend.

What if you discovered your role as a parent isn't as straightforward as you thought, particularly when dealing with a child's addiction? That's the tough pill we're swallowing in today's conversation. As a parent, your influence can shape your child's life in ways you may not fully comprehend. As we explore the murkier waters of parenting and addiction, we'll address the importance of examining our own upbringings, the impact of our parenting styles, and reconciling our expectations with our child's reality. Navigating through this complex landscape, we'll also delve into handling the discovery of your child's addiction, touching on the urgency of providing a safe, supportive environment and the necessity of professional intervention.

Shifting gears, we'll then journey through the recovery process - a path that's as challenging as it is transformative. As we discuss the role a parent plays in their child's addiction, we'll emphasize the necessity of fostering a safe space for recovery. Throughout our exploration of this pressing issue, remember, we are not alone on the path to recovery. Let's walk together.

Link to Krissy Pozatek's Parallel Process website

Thank you for listening and please visit www.siblinghoodofrecovery.com for free resources, links to organizations, groups and individuals who can offer help in the Journey of Recovery towards healing from substance use disorders. If you like this Podcast, please leave a rating on wherever you're listening. It will help to get the word out.

If there is one message I can leave you with, the best you can offer your loved one battling addiction is love and a healthier you.

Walk gently, my friend.