Little lies, big lies, white lies, lies of omission.  Lies are not unique to the struggles of mental illness or substance use.  But WHY, especially when it seems so obvious, so unnecessary, when some lies cause even bigger problems?

Consider this:  Essentially every thing we do has some kind of payoff, some benefit or we wouldn't do it.  It has a benefit and makes sense in some way even if it seems illogical or dysfunctional.  It is the way the mind, the ego operates.  It's the way of being human.

One of the benefits we desperately try to get is to feel SAFE.  SAFETY is an essential, core need.  If there's a hint of a threat to not getting a perceived need met, to avoid struggle, to distract because it's easier that way, well then lying is a way to accomplish that.  It gets the job done, and no you do not have to like it or empower the lie.  Still, we all need to feel safe. 

Our kids, in all the chaos, shame, desperation, will do whatever they need to do to restore safety.  How many of us just want them to feel safe?  We just have different perspectives of how to be safe.  One way, in their world, in order to BE SAFE is to LIE.
 
We might think "he/she is never going to stop lying".  Could be true.  Let me tell you some things that are even truer:

• He/She will stop lying when she feels safe enough to tell the truth, and not a minute before.  So to establish a calm, safe presence, what can you do?
• He/She is telling her version of the truth, you don't have to agree but demanding they agree with you will sustain the disconnect, reinforce the "lie".  And in delusional thinking, it will be very true for them.  And it is safer for them not to challenge that delusion unless you really know what you're doing.
• He/She is trying to avoid shame, embarrassment, guilt, more anxiety, more pain.
• We all change our minds with new info, with new experiences.  What seemed like something true before becomes essentially a lie later.  Bottom line - we change our minds, all of us.
• If we all change our minds, then we're all in the same boat of "lying".  Now we can begin conversation, exploration, clarification.
• To keep the peace, we don't say the full truth (thank goodness because sometimes that's really not helpful or comes out in anger).  This too, human condition, pretty common.  Just to notice.  
• If one of your highest need is to be safe, and lying helps you stay safe, you are going to do whatever it takes to be safe.  Makes sense, right?  So, how do we become a safe harbor for a ship that has lost its way and is on a crash course into jagged rocks? 

I'm not saying to ignore the potential damages of the interpreted lies, or not converse about facts.  It is with compassion, with realizing that lying makes sense, with realizing that to remove someone's safety, it  is going to throw them into possibly worse conditions than the lie itself.  With these truths, we are able to better navigate this very common, sometimes repetitive interaction.

Here are some possible responses to lies to consider if they feel true for you:

• Hmmmmm, that's interesting.
• Silence.  Try to remain calm and keep your heart open with compassion, understanding.
• Change the subject.
• Discontinue the conversation gracefully and kindly.  Invite to a different time to talk.
• Let's agree to disagree, you could be right.  I Love you. 
• Something doesn't make sense to me.  Can you explain that?  Can you help me understand? How does it work that way? 

It's no lie that we have a whole lot of struggles when we love a child who struggles with substance use.  And it is no lie that this is hard stuff!   And it is no lie that we are called to learn and practice new ways of connecting and communicating so we stay in the greater truths.  And the greatest truth is that Love wins here! 

For Peace,
Joanne

​(in honor of Nancy)

When we love someone who struggles with substance use and addiction, it is all too common to believe the thought “he/she might not be able to do IT for themselves”.  Of course, it doesn’t mean we always believe that, it’s just that if we’re totally honest, we can sometimes believe that thought.  At least I do sometimes when the rug is pulled out from under my feet, again.  
 
Another slip.  Things were going ok for about a month after another slip, and another, and another.  Years of other slips.  It makes sense that the thought “he might not be able to do IT for himself” will show up.  So I'm not going to judge the thought.  It has a right to show up. And when it does, the stress is so potent that the kindest thing I can possibly do (for me and my son) is to question it.  Pain becomes the guide, the teacher, the path to peace when these thoughts and beliefs want to say otherwise.  

Join me in this exploration, to find truths that arise in the stillness of an open mind, an open heart.  

1.  I can not possibly know the future, his future, my future.  What does “it” even mean? Abstinence? Just not being homeless? Staying alive? Only smoking weed?   

2.  When I believe the thought, even if briefly, I can barely think of anything else except worrying about his future, my future.  I leave my wisdom, my heart, I go into fear, imagined worst case scenarios … and it is painful.  I doubt him, I doubt the benevolence of Love itself.  This thought might try to help save me from further pain to anticipate it, however, it actually causes more pain.  There would be no preparation to worse.  The worse is already happening in my mind and imagination.  And to put my son there hurts him, hurts me, hurts the love I can feel now, now, now.  I have left love, no wonder it hurts.  I know Love wants me back though, I want it back too. 

3.  I know to question the thought, to give myself an opportunity to contemplate this situation without believing the whole story of him not being able to do IT. And when I don't believe the thought to be the only truth, I am available to breathe deeply into now, into the support of my chair, the deep breaths that keep grounding and centering me enough to be moved throughout the day without crumbling, to notice imagination vs just not knowing.  Not knowing is far kinder.  I become kinder to me, knowing I will be kind and compassionate in this unfolding situation as best I can.  Again, the only IT I really need is to try and show up as Love, loving, acknowledging he has IT – he has Love too! 

4.  I can not do IT for him.  I wish I could.  But, if I go to war with that reality, I suffer.  If I suffer in that argument with the way things are, my relationship with him is sure to suffer too.  I don't like it, but it is the way it is.  What can I do?  This work, from fear to love, and loving.

I don’t know the future, do you?  We can not.  What we can know is to set our minds, our hearts, set intentions to love now, and the next now as best we can.  It will be imperfect and so much better than not doing this work. The way back to the awareness of love is through the fear. This is one of the most powerful ways I do that.  Questioning the fears.  Love finds me every time. It can find you too!  
​
​The answer is LOVE, always.  How does Love show up and how do we join it? What do we need to join it, to take care of our fears, to take care of our needs, to take care of the ones we love so dearly without imposing a scary future onto them, onto ourselves, onto now?   Now is where Love lives. 
 
Love wins! 

For Peace,

Have you ever found yourself frustrated that you really want something but it’s just so hard to make it happen?  And maybe once you start a new goal, something happens and your best intentions are out the window?  

How about these scenarios?  I want to lose weight and I want to eat those cookies;  I want to exercise or go to the gym and I don’t want to or can’t wake up early to fit it in; I want to go to Europe and I don’t want to spend the money;  I want to switch jobs and I don’t want to shake up my life right now;  I want to stop using substances and I don’t want to give up the thing that is reliable and available and helps me through the day.

Notice the “and”.  Notice how it is very possible to want something new, want some kind of change AND to also want something that will make it really hard to get it.  This brings us to topic #3 from The Invitation to Change Approach ~ Ambivalence is Normal.  Here’s an overview for your consideration:

Ambivalence is Normal

• Wanting two conflicting things is actually normal.
• When habits are formed in our behaviors, body memory and mental memory can be automatic for many reasons.  They’re familiar.  These habits aren’t just erased because we want something else.  We still might want those cookies!
• Substance use as a habit met or meets the wants and needs.  It is true that using substances gets the job done, many of them.  Rather than argue with the reality of it, it is far better to acknowledge the truth of it and then figure out next steps and choices.

Why it matters that Ambivalence is Normal

• When you’re trying to make sense of your child’s ambivalence it’s not a shock and can help you stay calm, open-minded, and curious. When you hear your child’s opposing remarks or observe the conflicting messages in their behavior instead you can meet it with understanding.
• It will help you listen, help you respond with understanding and empathy, help you hear between the lines of how your child may still want the change even though the old behavior showed up. 
• It will help you be encouraging rather than accusatory, arguing, and blaming. 
• It will help you re-connect and re-mind you that your truer intention is to connect with and help your child.  Added benefit is that you will feel so much better showing up this way.

​
Life Application Ideas from Joanne:

• Notice how we are all so similar and can be ambivalent with big changes in our lives.  Relate with your child from this truth and with compassion for yourself and them.
• Practice the Pause.  Breathe, slow it down, set an intention for calm connection, do what it takes to show up that way.
• Replace an old behavior with a new behavior that is simple and doable with a desired benefit.  Let’s call that a positive pay off.
• Acknowledge that change is possible, it will take effort, it is doable, even though it might be unfamiliar and uncomfortable. 
• Rather than repeating the mantra “change is hard”, turn it around to “change is very possible” AND specify the ways it is doable, what you’ll need to achieve that change, who can support you, and how to return to your efforts if you return to an old habit. It’s ok, and can be a natural part of change!
• Everything changes, repeatedly bring yourself back to present, come back to facts and out of your imagined future and remembered past.  Now is where change happens and that is what changes the future.  Focus on now. 

I invite you to consider with an open mind, open heart, and with compassion how behaviors, emotions, attitudes actually make sense – in others and in yourself - and how there are many roads to travel, many ways to travel those roads, that we all have our unique perspective and thoughts about what will work for us, when and how AND even with the best intentions we might get sidetracked.  Consider it's OK, put the puppy back on the paper and begin again.  The time is always NOW. 

Breathe, touch your heart, feel the love in you, send it out to your child, to the world, to anyone who needs it. 

Love wins here!

To learn more about The Invitation to Change Approach and access additional resources, please click here:  https://cmcffc.org/about

To Peace and Possibility!

​Joanne

The confusion, struggles, and stress while loving a child through their own challenges with substance use can claim your energies, your happiness, your peace, right?  We need tools, methods, practices, skills that work.  Read on for some of those! 

For the next few months, I’ll be sharing with you a bit about each of the topics of The Invitation to Change Approach.  The ITC (Invitation to Change) takes the best science has to offer, including compassion, and makes it easy to understand and put into action.
 
It can work for the relationship with your child AND any relationship, even the relationship with yourself.

I invite you to consider inviting change into your heart, into your relationships, into your life.  You may be surprised that “change” is not as hard as one might believe. 
 
When I learn and practice new strategies that actually work (and those are the only ones I share), it brings more peace, it de-escalates tension, it increases my confidence, it strengthens my intention to show up in my life and for my son in ways that help us both.
 
You are invited to more peace. 

Topic #1  ~  Behaviors Make Sense

Behaviors make sense in some way. People use substances because it serves a purpose. You don’t have to like it, probably won’t, but arguing with the reality of it will cause more stress.  Instead, seek to understand.
 
Some reasons why people use substances or engage in related behaviors.  I invite you to consider with compassion and kindness why any of us would reach for anything to accomplish the following:

• To feel less anxiety
• To relieve depression
• To feel connected to something or someone
• To not suffer with physical pain
• To make it through the day
• To get to sleep

People don’t use substances because they’re bad or crazy. They use substances because they work well, they’re fast, they’re reliable, and give a measure of personal control.  They meet a need, they serve at least one purpose.   Good to know, good to understand what's really going on.
 
Why it matters that Behaviors Make Sense:

• It can help you take the behavior less personally and feel more empathy toward your child (yourself and anyone else too).
• It can inspire a path where you’re not arguing with the reality of it.  You’re coming from logic, understanding and compassion instead.
• It can help you to experience the behavior as less random, less of a surprise, and more predictable.
• It can help you start to communicate with your child (and anyone) in a way that helps them feel understood. It’s what we all want really, isn’t it?  And it can lead to deeper compassion and collaboration.  Something I’m thinking we also want. 

 
With curiosity, connecting to your heart, gaining clarity, and communicating from a place of understanding (doesn’t mean easy or in agreement or looking the other way) we can make a difference!
 
I invite you to consider with an open mind, open heart, with compassion how behaviors, emotions, attitudes actually make sense – in others and in yourself. 

Breathe, touch your heart, feel the love in you, send it out to your child, to the world, to anyone who needs it. 

Maybe change is not as hard as we might believe.  And you’re invited to find out.  Let me know how you experience “making sense”.  
 
Love wins here!

To learn more about The Invitation to Change Approach, please click here:  https://cmcffc.org/about

To Peace and Possibility!

Joanne

Loving a child who struggles with substance use is just hard!  And sometimes you may not feel so loving because of it, it's ok!  It's normal, it's human, and you can return to that loving feeling. 

There are so many reasons this could happen. When we consider addiction and the effects of substances, it can get ugly, dark, dangerous, exhausting.  We can be consumed with worry.  Where is love then?  And why isn't it saving my child?, we might ask.

We can learn new ways, try to use new tools and skills as best we can, be kind and patient and still there are times that it may seem a child continues to drift further away, become so symptomatic in mental and chemical imbalance, even violent that it seems impossible to influence or unadvisable to be too near.  Love can still show up and we can reconnect to it.  

In a perfect world, we'd be able to always meet our children as they are with un-conditional love, and the reality is that it's an imperfect world. We do and will place conditions on life itself.  Please live.  Please get better.  Please, because when you don't, this worry is killing me.  I want you to get better.  I need you to heal.  You should do something that helps you.  Conditions.  It's just part of our story. This too needs to be ok.

How when it gets really ugly, do we re-connect to love and that loving feeling?  Because if you're like me, sometimes I easily can and sometimes it takes a whole lot of work to get it back.  How does love win then?  I wonder!

Here's HOW.  I invite you to take the journey from worry to wonder now: 

Step 1:  Breathe into the present.  

• Breathe into the present moment, into your heart, close your eyes, touch your heart and intend to connect to a Love beyond your understanding, a love that may sometimes seem fleeting and begin to wonder that it is not, it could not disconnect from you.
• Do not believe your thoughts and all the images of past and future.  It's imagination, so either it's over or you can not know. Not knowing is probably kinder than those images! Breathe into the truth that you have not known a lot, and you're OK. 
• Join reality as it is, be willing to accept that for now things may seem tough AND you are surviving.  You have learned, grown, established new ways of thinking and being to meet it all and can do it again and again (and no it may not be easy). 
• Bring compassion for yourself and all the thoughts and emotions that are going to arise.  You are human.  Loving a child who struggles with substance use will bring struggle, and you will learn to meet the struggle and learn how to cope, and cope well because of it.  Be gentle with yourself. Breathe.

Step 2:  Re-Connect with who you really are and how you want to feel - Love and Loving

• No matter where and in what condition your child is in, breathe into your heart and send your love out energetically and silently from your heart to their heart.  Be willing to believe it reaches them.  This energy of Love is far bigger than you, it will do it's job.  Love's job is to live itself into the world, to recycle itself, to renew, to shine its light into darkness. And it's choosing you.  Feel it, send it out.
• Be willing to understand and accept that at any point in time and place, you are doing the best you can at the place of understanding and capability you're at currently, and allow it to be good enough, and consider it can change too.  Choose to learn from it and wonder what else is possible when you practice this journey from worry to wonder. 
• Consider repeatedly that your child is doing the best they can also, no matter what it may look like and sound like, they are!  The impact of substance use has its way, and we're opening up creating another way.  It is not out of the realm of logic that when someone has the mental anguish, conditions, or physical, emotional pain that our children experience, a substance relieves it.  It makes sense.  Becoming addicted and seeking the substance makes sense.  You don't have to like it, and it's still happening. 

Step 3:  Live Love

• Learn as much as you can about addiction and family recovery, seek and receive lots of support, practice what you learn so it becomes more familiar to you, and repeat the steps above as needed (if you're like me, they're needed!). This is love. 
• As substance use has its way on your child's brain, body, spirit, mind, realize you need new ways to meet the problems that are just part of the reality of substance use and addiction. Choose to consider love in new ways, out of the box, noticing where you get stuck and looking toward what you can do, what is within your power and without demanding your time and way.  Love will find a way to heal you in your pursuit of it, and that will transfer to your relationship with your child. 
• Grieve and choose life and love.  Yes, all the emotions can co-exist, they are already.  All your emotions have a place.  Choose to feel, choose to heal. 

Love will find you again and again and again, and you will find it.  It has an energy, a power that is beyond our human capacity to truly grasp its enormous generosity.  Our awareness and willingness, our intention to reconnect to Love when we feel disconnected can be one breath away (and then take a few more).  From there, you can send your love out even if silently to your child whether they are in the same room, whether you know where they are or not, or how they are.  Send it in honor and memory of the child that has and will always live in your heart, in honor of Love.

We need this kind of love, we need each other, we need you, you need you, your child and honoring their life needs you.  We may not be able to save a life, and we can save a relationship with that life.  It starts this way. 

I wonder what is possible?  When Love in its purest form resides within us and is shared from our heart to another's, what is possible?  I wonder!  How about you? 

I'd love to hear about your journey from worry to wonder.  Love wins here!

Peace,

Joanne

The horizon becomes so blurry as he sinks deeper into delusions, another bout of using, unrelenting destruction, a seeming in-ability or refusal to seek or accept help.  Here it comes again, the unrelenting desire for him to heal, to choose life.  Here it comes again, the unrelenting pain of arguing with the reality that his is not my ship to steer.
 
He sinks deeper and deeper into the dark, deep raging sea.  It’s all I can do to not go down with him when it feels as if I’m drowning in a sea of bottomless grief – the kind of grief so deep it spontaneously drags me into the waves of sorrow and worry, anger, the desperation, pleading please, please, please make this stop and heal him.

It's so hard to watch as this ship he rides is tossed around in a raging sea, its bows cracking with each wave.  It’s easy to believe it will sink entirely.  Can I absolutely know that’s true?  The mother ship watching the child’s, the not knowing, it is true I can not know it will sink, and I don’t want to either.
 
They go down and it’s all too easy to go right along with them, into our own raging seas.  BUT … AND …

Despite the raging seas, notice how in truth something inside us just does not want to go down with the ship, refuses to drown.  Notice how there is a force in and around you that keeps you reaching for life preservers, keeps trying to restore your breath, tread water, brings you to rest on any buoy that is available.
 
Self-preservation is automatic. It calls for us, this siren of the seas.  It says “Breathe, tread water, swim, rest, do what you can to help you, to help this situation!”  So we breathe, we cry, we moan for relief, we speak the pain, we sit with it, we drop to the floor, we stand back up and suddenly we’re walking again, being moved to something that might resemble walking out of the waves, even if for a respite of time.  We reach for life preservers. 
 
Though we may be in the same seas as our children, we each have our own ship to steer and navigate whatever waters we are in.  In truth, we can not remain on their ship and we can’t steer it for them.  In the midst of those seas, we are afloat, we have not drowned, some how we find ourselves navigating the raging seas, moved by the tide.  The tide is in.  The tide is out.  It’s a force of its own, it will have its way.
 
It's not supposed to be feel good or be easy, how could it be?  But that does not mean we can’t ride these waves even when they rage.  And there are life preservers. 

Ask yourself, seek the answers, and find them:  What supports are available to you?  What supports do you already have that are working for you?  Notice the life preservers in your life.  What life preservers whisper to you to seek out and grab hold of in order to ride the waves and get your head above water again?  Notice how you’re not all the way under and you don’t stay under.  Something moves you back up, treading water, lifted out of the waves, breathing even if gasping for air, breathing again, resting when able so you can continue on.  Is it mother love?  Is it love that finds you to mother yourself? 
 
This love will find us everywhere, in any condition.  It will whisper, it will keep calling us back to itself, and lift us, move us up and forward.  It doesn’t promise easy, just that it loves all of us as is and will inspire. It is the ultimate life preserver.
 
It’s not going to be easy, and there are life preservers.  I invite you to check out the ones listed here.  Just click on any or all:
 

• Helping Families Help  
• Allies in Recovery  
• TAM – The Addict’s Mom Medication Assisted Treatment and Harm Reduction 
• SMART Recovery 
• CMC: Foundation for Change    
• Moms for All Paths to Recovery (MAP)   
• Grace for Grieving Families (loss due to substance use) and Thrive Family Recovery Resources (CRAFT and Faith)  
• Loving Your Child Through Their Addiction  
• Parents of Struggling Children with Drugs and Alcohol (including CRAFT)  
• The Partnership to End Addiction     https://drugfree.org/  1-855-DRUGFREE or 855-378-4373
• SAMHSA - Substance Abuse and Mental Health Services Administration 
• National Helpline - https://www.samhsa.gov/find-help/national-helpline
• Harm Reduction -  https://www.samhsa.gov/find-help/harm-reduction

Love “Em Where They’re At ~ Harm Reduction Works 
Monday @ 4pm Pacific - virtual meeting
 
A specialized HRW (Harm Reduction Works) group for anyone in a parenting role for someone who uses drugs and or alcohol. Everyone is welcome especially parents and guardians who aren’t sure what harm reduction is or whether it can help them. 
 
Join Zoom Meeting 
https://us02web.zoom.us/j/89083597242... 
Meeting ID: 890 8359 7242 
Passcode: 583656  
 
Love wins!  It shows up.  It shows up in so many ways.  It shows up in you.  It is you, and it will hold you and carry you as you ride these waves, and you may have to steer in different directions, patch up your ship and get in different waters.  So sadly, we may see that some ships will crash, and some may sink.  Don’t be one of them.  Love will lift you again and again, and help you to navigate your course, your path whatever that may be, and however you may choose.

It’s not easy so let’s travel together.
 
Sending you love,
 
Joanne Richards

Just yesterday, and again, it must be 50 times already, at least 3 in the last few months, he's left detox.  In seconds I'm flooded with disappointment, disgust, anger, and then the grief, the deep sorrow, the relentless fears feel all consuming.  I drop to the floor, my body can't even hold itself up.

I am all too familiar with this scenario. I've learned to accept it all in me, welcome it all, let it all have its life, create time and space for the whaling cries, the swollen eyes, the inability or desire to speak.  It's become my sacred grieving. When that all has it's time to be expressed, I question one of my thoughts, "he won't live through the year".  That's the journey, the questioning.  I do The Work of Byron Katie, the simple process of questioning my thoughts.  It holds me in its questions, in my desire to journey, to see. I welcome all of it, and whatever truths I trust are revealed in the process.  Half an hour later, truth finds me.  Peace arrives.  I'm off the floor.  

It might be true that my son may not live through the year with all the using, the other medical conditions he has, living on the streets with nothing but the clothes on his back, having zero community, and on an on.  And still, I can't know how long his life will be, how it will be, so I get the hell out of God's business, out of hell, and into my own business of what is within my power.  Anything else just plain hurts! I start to distinguish between my vivid imagination in fear and facts, get into the present moment.  I'm on the floor questioning my thoughts, as far as I know my son is alive somewhere, he's resourceful and unbelievably resilient. Yes, he's left another detox, but my choices are revealed.  Do I continue and deepen my own form of detox or leave the journey of mind detox, leave much needed self care, do I stay withll the things that support my life, or leave?  I stay!

All this fear, when questioned brings me from laying on the floor sobbing, to sitting up, holding my shoulders straight, breathing deeper and slower, the suffocating grief in my throat is relieved.  I am left with utter simplicity, one job, one singular intention as the clarity of not knowing where my son has walked off to and what he will co-exists and sits right beside me.  We're ok there.  I don't know, can't know, and in that not knowing, the awareness of love itself, that energy of love replaces the fear.  I get up, I feel the peace of it, I get moved.  Simple.   

My only job is to love.  How can I return to my job and quickly, the invitation that the stress makes is so compelling. I slow down to question whatever thoughts and beliefs are going to put layer upon layer of confusion into my mind, the physical stress of that, the mental anguish of that, and take me away from my most important job.  With the thought, my son doesn't even make it through five minutes in my mind, I have him dead this year.  With the thought, I am a wreck.  That's all ok, but my soul wants love!  I want love, I need love! That's how I want to live through this year, whether he does or not.  And he needs this from me! I need this from me!  I need to give it because of the situation, because he left detox, because maybe one day he'll call. What CAN I do?  I call me, I call upon love to take me from fear and back into its calm, peaceful, wise guidance. In these scary situations, real or imagined, I know the way out is to go in.  I do The Work. The way is to care for my fears which brings me into the purity and power of love, no conditions, re-connected again, contributing to peace at the very least in me, touching my heart, breathing all that in, imagining hugging my son with that, communicating this love so he has a better shot of hearing it and feeling it if he resurfaces.  I use what I've learned and skills developed.  If my son calls me, it will not be my fear I give.  It will be my love!

Fear just does not communicate what we so desperately want to give, to be, to share, to have.  Love does!  It is the only job that makes the most sense before all others.  And in that deeper truth, my senses know beyond a shadow of a doubt to love him where he's at whether I know where that is or not, in any condition, because he lives, that might last and it might not.  My love, love itself can last! It shows up to guide me, in the questioned fears, this simple process that so profoundly brings me on this journey from the floor in fear to standing in the power of love.  It might not be easy, but it is sure a whole lot easier than before I took the journey.  I become the light in the darkness, having walked into it and out of it, lighter, able to shine on.  This is the journey, take it!  

Drugs don't win here.  Love does!

In gratitude and peace,

Joanne Richards
February 6, 2022