Discovering our own need for help

Read yesterday’s post before today’s.  

Yesterday I began to tell the story of a frustrated couple from our Family Education Program who believed that they were not getting the information they needed in order to inspire their loved one to take treatment seriously.  

I heard in their voices frustration, disappointment, fear, anxiety, and, perhaps, isolation (they did not believe other people had the same difficulty they did).  All of these feelings and experiences are real and burdensome.  I feel for them.  

Mom and I meet with families every week to discuss how to be helpful to loved ones needing recovery.  We always pass on a few key things we’ve learned.  These keys look something like this:  You can’t necessarily make someone enter treatment, but there are some skills you can learn and practice that assist a person in discovering that treatment and recovery are good ideas worth pursuing.  The portion of the family that knows that recovery is necessary needs to pursue their own recovery because everyone involved needs healing, support, encouragement, and education and these factors combined create an environment where recovery is more possible than it might otherwise be.  

The frustrated family’s problem, I think, is the belief that there is a hidden key somewhere that will unlock a door that provides a solution.  They believe that there is some trick no one is telling them that will give them their desired goal, their desired end.  They are solutions-focused and not yet process-oriented.  

I say this not to judge them.  I do not believe it is their fault and I believe it is totally understandable.  I believe everyone who has this sort of problem begins roughly in this place.  But it has got me thinking about the difference between being solutions-oriented people verses process-oriented people (of course, we can probably mix both, it doesn’t have to be a choice).  

And so, I want to spend a few days writing about the nature of process.  

How do I make someone do something they need?

A speaker at a recent Family Education Program presented various options and approaches to treatment.  Each FEP meeting draws a diverse crowd of people in terms of the recovery spectrum and the recovery process.  Some of the attendees are in the midst of a substance use disorder.  Some have family members in the midst of a substance use disorder.  Some have family members in long-term recovery, some are in long-term recovery themselves.  

In this particular meeting, a mother and father raised their hands to ask how to get their loved one into treatment.  They have heard all the options before, but their loved one is stubbornly resistant.  They believe they know the options, and they now need to know how to capitalize on them.  They were frustrated, fed up.  I don’t know this for sure- but I would guess they felt their situation was unique and that their loved one was more stubbornly resistant than the average bear.  

Their predicament highlights perhaps the central problem family’s encounter once they discover a loved one needs help.  But, at the same time, the question also highlights a problem in terms of how they have been coached to approach recovery.  

What problem?  I’ll tell you tomorrow.

New Blog Features

We know that most of you read the blog in your email inbox.  That's great.  It's quick and easy.  But we also want to make you aware of some new features starting in December that you'll only be able to use if you view the blog on our website.  In short, all posts from December 1, 2017 on will be grouped to make it easier to find past content.  

We will be using "tags" so you can quickly find posts that may be on the same topic but written at different points in time.  For instance, if the tag "codependency" shows up at the bottom of a post (on the website) you can click on that tag and see all the posts we've ever written on codependency.  

You can also:  

• Find posts based on month and year of creation
• Find posts based on the author (view all posts an author has ever written)

Bear in mind these features will only apply to posts moving forward and will not apply to the archived posts from our prior blog host and, because of that, it will take a little bit of time before they become really useful.  Even so, we want you to know what's on the horizon and let you know there will be benefits to getting out of your email and onto the website.  

Welcome to our new blog

Hey NSC'ers,

Welcome to our new blog format.  

Starting Dec. 1, 2017, we will post our daily blog directly on our Squarespace website and they will be emailed to you via our new MailChimp account.  Between now and then you will continue to receive the blogs in the exact same format you are used to.  There will only be one more day where you will receive both an "old" blog email and a "new" blog email.

We are doing this so we can have greater control over the format and layout of each post and how they appear both in your browser, on your phone, and in your email app.  Hopefully this will make it easier to read and engage our posts.  In a few days, you'll get another email unpacking new features that make the blog more searchable.

If you're having problems viewing our posts in any of these places, please let me (Scott:  scott@northstarcommunity.com) know so I can get to work on ironing out all the wrinkles.  

Thanks!