A Family May Not Have it All Together, but Together They Can Have it All

A Talk Poured Out of Me One?Night

As I was thinking about my first public speaking opportunity made especially amazing because it’s with my wife, I thought you know, about how…

…the event was carefully and intentionally created to promote belonging. It was thoughtfully designed to welcome together people of great diversity, talents, and experiences. It was intentional as the organizers clearly wanted people to feel good about being there. They wanted to treat them with respect and care. They wanted to be thoughtful to the anticipated needs of all attendees. They especially wanted to be sensitive to some people who have barriers and accommodate them. They cared.

The organization that hired me is a community that goes beyond the meeting room, a community with common beliefs and common goals. I would suggest that it is a community of great power and great hope. It’s a community with a brand and a clear mission. One might even refer to it, on some level, as a family, and family is, to me, the fundamental system that holds the key to long-term change for those struggling with emotional health, mental injury, and the experience of addiction.

The way that I experienced the event and the people that made it up is similar to how I see the families that love someone who is struggling with pain and despair.

So like the creation of the gathering and the people who were gathered there, I will suggest that we get to see these very brave families in a similar way and we get to remind them of who they are as I even reminded some of the audience who they are as individuals, members of an organization and of a family; they are strong, diverse, creative, resilient, loving, proud, a safe harbor of belonging in the face of a turbulent illness, they are thoughtful, considerate, empathetic, and compassionate. Let us celebrate this!

Families are also a community, a system that has lost its rudder and its leader, but only temporarily. Although they may feel like they are failing they are actually in a perpetual state of learning, becoming, and overcoming. What has happened to them is not IN their way but only ON their way.

Our job as therapists, coaches, case managers, mothers and fathers, lovers, sisters, and brothers is to rebuild the family, to help renovate the whole system not just the person with the “disorder”. To do this, we will first and foremost not scold anyone for being inadequate in a challenge for which they have had NO TRAINING.?

I like to remind people that the only perfect parents are the ones who don’t have kids yet.

It’s our job to dispel the notion that caring deeply for another person is pathological, by labeling anyone a codependent. It’s our job to throw away the notion that in order to heal we need to label each other addict, alcoholic, or enabler. We get to say, instead, that labels are for bottles and cans, and besides, they tell inaccurate stories. We get to remind them that it’s the person first in this family and to call each other by name. In this family, it’s about how we are the same, not just how we are different. In this family, it’s about creating deeper connections not only giving directions and advice. In this family, we recognize the power of loving more and caring less, which means we have clearly and intentionally defined what we do and do NOT have control over. In this family we respect the power of choice, getting to be different, and being responsible for our actions. In this family, we believe wholeheartedly in forgiveness and give up the notion entirely of one day having a different past.

When we have done our job right we get to turn back over the job of leading the ongoing project of becoming a stronger, more loving, and forgiving family to the person who called us for help in the first place. They only needed to be reminded who they are and what they are capable of and now they no longer need us. They’ve got this. They are capable of leading. They are healing. They are awakening. They will never again organize around an addiction, rather they will organize around each other and that combined strength and wisdom of the group will overcome any challenge that comes along.

When we recognize and celebrate that we are better together than we are apart, anything is possible. Anything.

If you or someone you love is struggling with their relationship with alcohol or other drugs, please reach out to me for a complimentary consultation. I guarantee it will change your life.?www.familyaddictionrecovery.net

Thank you.