Exaggerated strength!

As a contrast to the last blog entry about playing the victim I'll go ahead and describe another behavior that is common among relatives to a person with an addiction problem. It's called that you get "obsessed with strength".

It means that you help other people that are in need of help and to get acknowledged and identify yourself as a strong and good-doing person. By looking at the addict in a way you would a small vulnerable child in need of care you yourself get the affirmation that you are supportive, important and you build your self esteem around this.

Compared to the addict, you'd view yourself in the role as the strong and responsible one. That way the addict can continue to not take responsibility for their actions. Because the consequences of the addiction are taken care of by the strong and responsible one.

This could also mean that if you don't have anyone to take care of at the moment, you lose your feeling of being valuable and you start to feel that there is no purpose in your life.

Being focused on helping someone else all the time lets you postpone dealing with yourself in many ways, your own feelings and needs. You hold yourself occupied with saving someone else and in that way you don't need to face yourself and the situation you are living in.

Don't get me wrong, being helpful and showing compassion are amazing virtues, and the world would be a better place if those virtues were used more. However, when being helpful becomes an escape from yourself, or happens at the expense of someone else's health, then it is high time to think over your priorities.


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Are you a victim?

Being a relative to a person with an addiction can make us fall into the trap of being the victim. We consider ourselves being subject to betrayal and ingratitude from the person we have helped so much and tried to save. When that person continues their addiction we take that as them being ungrateful towards all the things we did for them. Maybe we even overstepped our boundaries and values in order to help this person. That is when we start to see ourselves as victims of the addict.

What we also did in this process was to take away the responsibility from the addict.

We turned them into children that don't need to take care of the consequences of their actions or make decisions regarding change. In that way the addict has no opportunity to grow, develop and see the negative consequences of the addiction, because that was taken care of by us relatives.

As a child you are a victim of your parents addiction. You are dependent on your parents to survive and they are your guardians. As an adult, you have the possibility to change. You can choose. We can choose our relationships, we can choose if we want to help or not. It is our choice, our decision.

If you think you might be doing what is described in the text, if you have helped, saved and never gotten a thank you for doing it and if you feel like you have taken on the role as a victim. Do you want to change? You have made choices so far, that you might be more happy with or not. And now you have the opportunity to make new choices for your future!

Want to - Be able to - Ready!

What does it really take for a person to make a change in their life? In big and small things?

The conversational method Motivational Interviewing (MI) says that in order to accomplish making a change you need to:
1. Believe that the change is important and has a greater value for you (greater than the current situation).
2. Have faith in your own ability to manage carrying through with the change.
3. Be prepared to start acting to achieve the change.

So think about this: Do you have anything in your life that you would like to change? Or with your relative in mind, and the change you hope they will make. How important is this change - from the perspective of your relative? (not other's perspective) And if the person really wants to make a change, how much faith does he or she have in succeeding? The risk is that we may believe that a certain change is very important, but if we are sure we'll fail we're not going to dare to try anyway.
And lastly, if both of you believe that this change is important, and you se the gains from carrying through with the change and you have faith in your ability to succeed. What are you then willing to put at stake to go through with the change? Are you ready to perhaps change old habits, using new patterns of thought, do things differently in different situations from how you did before? Are you ready to turn away from certain things in order to prioritize the change.

And when it comes to you, how do you reason regarding a change you want to make?
- How important is it to you?
- How big faith do you have in succeeding? (If your faith is low, what do you need to do to strengthen your trust in yourself? What can contribute? What can help with that?)
- And lastly, what are you willing to do to succeed?

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Said about the self-help manual

These are some things that people have told me about how the self-help manual has helped them:

• Working on the questions in the material has strengthened me and gave me the courage to bring up sensitive topics.
• The exercises in this manual have made me understand some things about my own behavior, and about my relative who is a substance addict. It has made me think differently.
• The self-help manual helped me to let go of some of my control and as a result my relationship to my husband is much better. 
• The manual is comforting and something that I can go back to and read whenever I want.
• The practices that I have done during the time I was working with the self-help manual had made me dare to say “no more” and start focusing on my own needs.
• The self-help manual feels like a trusted friend that I can come back to if I need to.
• I got a new picture of what I can change and what is my responsibility, and what isn’t. It has also changed the way I communicate with my relative with alcohol problems.
• Now I feel stronger and I’m able to speak up more without getting a bad conscience afterwards.

Read more about the self-help manual here: http://www.amazon.com/Self-Help-Manual-Relatives-Substance-Abusers-ebook/dp/B00AC7RQEE/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&qid=1395223861&sr=8-1&keywords=Carina+Bang

Are you tired of dwelling?

The things that happens to us in life need to be processed, especially when we have experienced traumatic events and things that are hard in life. To process those events, it is worth a lot to have someone to bounce things on, a friend or a professional, that helps the thoughts to move on. Sometimes we get stuck when we try to process, though. Then we can start to dwell instead, the same thing over and over again. We fall asleep with the same though that we wake up with and we don't get anywhere. In the end you get so terribly tired and sick of your own thoughts. Here is a tip on what you can do, if you feel like you are stuck on one thought and you have a hard time concentrating on other things.

Decide on a time each day when you can dwell to the max.
For example: "Today, at 3 pm, I'll get to dwell however much I want for 20 minutes." If you start to dwell before 3 pm you tell yourself: -"OK, these thoughts will have to wait until 3 pm." and then concentrate on something else. When 3 pm rolls around you sit down and think, write, cry and dwell all you can during a fixed period of time. When that time is over you focus on other things again and decide on a new time to dwell the next day. In that way the dwelling doesn't occupy your whole day and you can reclaim focus and do other things. This exercise has helped me. After a period of time you will probably sit down to dwell and come to the conclusion that it is really boring and that you'd rather do something else with your time. That's when you have gotten over your dwelling!

Must, should, will = Motivation-stoppers

Do you feel like you often must, should and will? Like this:
I should clean…
I must do the dishes…
I will cook now…

With all too many shoulds and musts there is a risk that we feel burdened and that life is only filled with requirements and duties. So we can comfort ourselves with the thought that there is only one thing we actually must do: We all must die.
Until then, it is up to our choices.

One way to motivate yourself to these musts and shoulds is to change the words. Try! If you instead say: I really want it to look nice and clean around me! (instead of "I should clean") Doesn't it feel a little more motivating?

So what you do is to exchange the words must, should and will to something more motivating, like "I want to, I feel like, I look forward to…"
Then you think about what result you want to achieve, what is the prize for doing this?

I --- must --- study.
I --- want --- to get good grades.

I --- should --- do the laundry.
I --- want --- to have clean clothes.

I --- have to --- save $100 each month.
I --- feel like --- going on a vacation next month.

Who is your best friend?

Do you often do things for others that you don't really want to do? Do you say yes but you mean no? Or do you cancel or neglect things you'd want to do in favor of someone else's needs? Do you say no to yourself and your needs and prioritize other's?

Who are you guaranteed to live with every second, minute, day, week, month and year for the rest of your life?
Treat yourself like you would treat your best friend!

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Trust?

Hello guys!

I recently wrote a book for relatives of substance abusers. I wrote one of the passages because I often get the question "Can I trust him/her again?" I thought I'd share a piece of what I wrote about trust:

"After many disappointments and let-downs it is only natural that you don't feel like you can trust the other person any more. Many relatives feel guilty because of it. Also the addict sometimes blames the relatives for doing this, and say things like: "What does it matter if I try to better myself? You still don't trust me!"

Through my job I often meet people that wonder: -"How could I ever trust him/her again?". "How can I trust that he/she won't drink again?" Other relatives try to make a choice instead -"I choose to trust him/her." The feeling I can get during those conversations is that many people feel that it is rude or unfitting to not trust someone. Although to me it seems pretty reasonable and explainable that you don't trust someone that has broken so many promises, let you down many times and in that way hurt you. Would you trust a friend or your boss if they again and again broke promises? Probably not.

To be able to trust someone is based on that you during a period of time have been able to see a certain amount of predictability and reliability in that person and that they don't hurt you. Both predictability and reliability are often affected when someone develops an addiction. And after a let-down it takes time to trust again. The person needs to use new actions in a longer time perspective to show that there is predictability and reliability. It takes time and that is alright.

You can also think about it in another way: Trust that the person can take drugs/drink if they want to. Trust that however much you try to control the addict they will always be smarter if they want their drug. You can trust that. Also trust that your relative has the power to change, if they want to."

What thoughts and reflections do you have on this?

/Carina

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You can't prevent

"You can't prevent the birds of sorrow from flying over your head,
but you can stop them from building a nest in your hair"

Chinese saying

Control is an illusion...

My fantastic coach-colleague and author Emma Pihl has written wise things about control in the book "Let go - be free from your control needs."

Quote:
The truth is that it really doesn't matter if we try to control or if we let it go; we cannot, in any case, determine the future. Control is an illusion that creates a false sense of safety in our lives. That illusion can become so addictive that it no longer is we ourselves that decide that we want to continue controlling. The control has started to control us."

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