I encourage family members to support and celebrate any level of recovery, but also to verbalize how this level of recovery affects them. Family members might not be ready to fully repair relationships at this level. The person suffering needs to hear the truth.
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The addict is the major focus of the family. So family members spend much of their time and energy dealing with the addict unconsciously. This includes helping, enabling, or covering up their behavior to preserve the norm.
Continue readingI learned about the concept of a Higher Power from True. She wanted the best for me; she didn’t want me to suffer or relapse. Prior to making True my Higher Power, I would happily argue with anyone about religion. But after I met True, I no longer put up a fight about it. If a dog could be my driving force, who was I to argue against anyone else’s beliefs?
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g to sober, identifying triggers that might stand in the way of recovery is necessary. It’s not uncommon for people who struggle with addictions to relapse at least once during recovery due to these triggers. Some even fall off the wagon several times before committing to sobriety.
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here are two very successful programs with proven results for long-term recovery. They are; the Human Intervention Motivation Study (HIMS) for pilots and Partial Hospitalization Program (PHP) for physicians. Both programs boast an above an 80% success rate at long-term recovery. Other general programs without a similar foundation have a success rate of less than 20%.
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In early recovery, there are some major benchmarks to celebrate and also specific discomforts to expect.
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I don’t know how a trauma in my family a few generations back might show up in my life, that is until I recently passed up buying a pumpkin. I stood in front of a beautiful pumpkin at a farm stand. It was marked half price and I stood in front of it, frozen, unable to decide if I wanted to buy it. I walked away from that pumpkin feeling sick to my stomach.
Continue readingAfter a person completes treatment, there need to be changes at home. Prior to entering into recovery, there was a dynamic that allowed and perhaps even supported active addiction.
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The process of intervention is an opportunity for the family to come together and manage the addiction in a proactive way. For years, families respond to the chaos of addiction. Intervention is the opportunity for a family to look at that pattern and determine how they will handle future situations.
Continue readingFamilies know in their guts that something isn’t right. When they address the concerned person, a process of gaslighting, or turning the warranted concern around on the person that voiced it. As a result, loved ones start to question their premonition and offer the person the benefit of the doubt all the while, the addiction is unknowingly in control of everyone affected.
Continue readingWhat if I asked you to drop your phone in the mailbox and send it to me? It’s a big ask, isn’t it? We’ve become reliant on phones for years, habitually checking for new messages and reading updated news, and now here I am, telling you to give it up.
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rn (POC) it is important to change the way that you have been talking to them in the past. Below are some of my favorite phrases to use when addressing someone with addiction.
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An intervention is not a one-off event; it is a recovery process. I commit to working with families for 90 days to ensure that the person suffering begins treatment successfully and has a plan that will ensure long term recovery. Committing the first time can lock in lasting recovery, making the intervention a process that only has to be done once.
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Thinking about recovery is about as effective as thinking about going to the gym. it does nothing to help the person actually recover.
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If you consider yourself a functional alcoholic, are you really functioning at your highest level? Or have you lowered the bar of what’s acceptable to cater to your addiction?
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The effects of P2P meth can be devastating; debilitating side effects of meth use are now realized in a matter of months – side effects that were not seen for years with traditional crystal meth.
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When putting a dollar value on recovery, consider how much money you would pay to change everything in your life. How much would you pay to keep your children? How much would you pay to keep your job? How much would you pay on your child’s behalf to totally change their life? How much would you pay to have four more hours in a day?
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Our goal with an intervention is to help someone see the consequences of their substance use, to shine a light on something that they are missing. We want to help them choose recovery at a point before rock bottom.
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To determine how to help someone, it is necessary to hear the stories of the people around them. To find the right facility for a person in need, we need to know whether the issue is an addiction or a mental health problem or both.
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