Crisis – Significant Other

The Family Recovery Solution

Ideally, your loved one (IOC) understands they’ve crossed a line, they’re at the epicenter of a disruption and need to make change. But addiction doesn’t allow them to fully own their contribution to the crisis.

You’re probably wondering how you can best be helpful. First, look at your relationship.

How has the crisis disrupted functioning?

Your concern is about your significant other-your spouse, partner, or lover.

Let me assure you that your interactions have influence.

The Relationship

In crisis, your history with your significant other can be both an asset or an obstacle. If your significant other is not motivated to reach our for help, I’m guessing you’ve had some conversations to motivate them. For many, those conversations don’t go well, or maybe they seemed to go okay but your significant other was not able to do what they say. Their actions don’t align with their words. This may be a pattern they have from the past and it may be a symptom of addiction. It’s not either or; it’s both and.

Consider the history of the relationship you have with your significant other. It’s important. Check out the 4 types of attachment relationships https://dianepooleheller.com/attachment-styles/

Attachment

Our early relationship with mother sets the attachment patterns mentioned in the link above. Parenting influences how a child sees themself in the world, how they relate to others, and how they get their needs met. There are different types of parenting, each influences the parent/child relationships. https://my.vanderbilt.edu/developmentalpsychologyblog/2013/12/types-of-parenting-styles-and-how-to-identify-yours/ Scan these pages to get ideas about patterns of behavior in relationship, patterns that you may be seeing between you and your significant others, but are not personal to you.

When addiction is behind the crisis, your significant other has learned to connect to the chemical, behavior, or process much more than to another person, even someone they love deeply. Know there are impersonal pattens behind your personal interactions. Your significant other is getting feel good brain chemicals from the substance or process. They are attaching more to the chemicals than to you.

You may witness your significant other’s emotions build from frustration, to anger, to rage. It’s likely you’ve been in arguments. Know there’s a reciprocal relationship between their anger and how you make meaning of it. You need to keep yourself safe and there are reasons behind this challenge.

Are you in an abusive relationship and ready to make change?

If you’re in an a abusive relationship, your first priority is creating an environment of safety around you. Before you can begin navigating the addiction of your significant other, you need to feel safe in your body. This may happen with multiple areas of support, or it may take you consciously putting yourself in another environment.

If/when you’re ready to glimpse at what healing from growing up with addiction and violence in the home can look and sound like, listen to the podcast, Families Navigating Addiction & Recovery with Morgana Rae (October 9th, 2018), who talks about abuse is not personal. Know there is hope and that it is very likely that things will not change unless you do. You are key.

http://hpi.gya.temporary.site/category/podcasts/

At best, the relationship between you and your significant other has a history of secure attachment for both of you before the slow gradual process of addiction. A history of secure attachment gives you and your significant other a memory of functionality and skills in interpersonal relationship that will serve you both well in recovery.

Maybe you’ve communicated your concern for them, asked questions and really listened. You’ve done your best to not communicate in anger, and manage any anger directed at you by not engaging in it.

At worst, you and your significant other have childhood history of a challenging type of attachment that includes pain and hurt. motional baggage. Worst case scenario is that emotional baggage from childhood leaks into your relationship with your significant other and you have not had an opportunity to learn and practice new relational skill.

When keeping the relationship and/or family together is a goal and you haven’t had the opportunity to learn warning signs of addiction and abuse, old patterns of love in relationship drives your decisions.

Addiction increases stress and puts everyone in the family on the defense.

Maybe you’ve gotten triggered, raised your voice, gotten in arguments and demanded they make a change. Maybe you’ve done this many times.

Either way, challenging areas in the history of your relationship may be acted out in the present. The crisis today feels so personal, so painful. Every time another crisis arises the normal tendency is try and solve the problem. Your efforts help manage the crisis. Things may get better, for a while. But the problem is not fixed.

The crisis. Their behavior. Arguments. Addiction. Abuse. You may hear that you are at fault. You’re not. None of this is not your fault. But you may feel you are responsible for them. You’re not. But it is your responsibility to learn how to keep yourself safe.

Focusing only on your significant other can be a strategy to numb yourself from your own painful feelings. Focusing only on your significant other disconnects you from your own ground. You may feel like a stick in a river, rudderless, kicked around by your significant other’s demands. Your focus follows them from one crisis to another.

You may think your narrow focus is your significant other’s only lifeline. It may be, but unless you can disengage your focus once they’re safe from their crisis, your narrow focus contributes to you being pulled deeper into their emotional turmoil.

On the river when a person falls out of the boat, you extend your paddle to them or toss a throw rope to pull them into the safety of the boat. If you jump in the water to go save them, bare minimum you put your own life at risk. You sacrifice yourself. If you do swim out to them, it’s a natural reaction for them to grasp onto you and pull your head under the water.

If you’ve saved your significant other in one crisis after another, your actions send the message to your significant other that you will continue to save them regardless of the crisis. They may expect you to put your life at risk over and over, and if one time you cannot or do not save them, you probably hear what a horrible partner you are. Your behavior of saving has reinforced their expectation of you saving them, you being responsible for them.

Your doing things for your significant other that they could do for themself, reinforces a pattern of codependency. You may think and feel your actions are all about saving your significant other. Yes, and your actions prevent you from feeling your own feelings and staying connected to your own ground.

In families with an addicted loved one the common strategy, the narrow focus on one person numbs your own feelings, while your significant other is numbing their feelings with their drug, chemical or process that led to the crisis. An activation in one person leads to reciprocal activation in the other. It feels personal. There’s more to it.

Because this reciprocal circular looping is driven by underlying patterns from each person, it’s predictable and mechanical. If any of this sounds familiar, your work is to:

Learn general patterns of codependency
Learn your specific patterns and what underlies and drives your patterns
Personalize your next best steps for your situation
Learn an and/both focus that includes your feelings, your ground
Practice shifting your focus from your loved one to yourself
Practice shifting your focus from your loved one to factors that contribute to another crisis
Take a concrete incremental step to disengage from the pattern

From stress to trauma

With crisis, bare minimum you have stress. When there is one crisis after another your body adapts as best it can. Your body may see crisis as “new normal” in which to adapt. Adapting to challenge is a neurobiological reaction. We are not aware of the incremental changes unless we can slow down to calm and reflect on the experience. When there’s one crisis after another, our body does not have time or space to slow down and reflect.

It is crucial to acknowledge you have stress. With ongoing stress and impact from addiction your body becomes a receptacle that holds the stress. The extent of holding stress from addiction is a slow gradual of negative impact to your body. It’s likely you won’t even notice.

Warning signs to stress and trauma:

Difficulty sleeping, distressing dreams
Intrusive, persistent thoughts about the crisis or worrying about your loved one
Inability to calm yourself
Inability to concentrate on anything except your significant other
Depression, anxiety or mood swings
Panic or exaggerated reactions to events
Withdrawal from friends and loved ones

The more of these you relate to, the more you can assume you’ve taken on impact from addiction in the family. Your role is crucial in your family, which is a good reason to make your own care a priority. At the bottom of this document are choices for multiple support systems. You’re reaching out will be worth it on many levels.

Check out the continuum from stress to trauma (link to a blog post I will write)

The Conversation

Initiating a conversation with your loved one may or may not be useful for you at this time.

If you answer no to any of the questions below, it is not advisable to initiate a conversation.

Do you feel safe?
Can you disagree with your significant other without feeling bad or threatened?
Are you able to walk away and disengage after being blamed?
Can you calm yourself after a charged encounter?
Are you confident you can keep yourself safe?

“No” answers are indications to call 911. “No” answers indicate a conversation about the crisis may not be useful at this time. Having a guide seems necessary right now. Focus on getting yourself in a safe environment.

Realize that if you’ve set boundaries (or said some things) that you cannot uphold with your behavior, a conversation may not be helpful right now.

Your behavior has greater impact to your significant other than your words.

Only when the answers to the above questions are “yes” can you think about initiating a conversation with your significant other. Only if you have support and you believe you are ready to consider general ideas for a useful conversation, only then think about the suggestions below:

What is the purpose of the conversation?
How can you best stay focused on that purpose?
What will you do when you feel pulled from that purpose?

Do you have a guide, coach and/or therapist to help you decide if a conversation would be helpful, plan a strategy, debrief afterwards, and navigate the next situation? Or are you try got go this alone?

The ideal may or may not be realistic for you right now

I’m reminded of a wise mentor I had back in the 80’s and 90’s who stated, “Only in the presence of compassion will a person allow themselves to see the truth.” It’s optimal for you to create this presence of compassion in your relationship with your significant other. If this is not realistic for you, it’s a sign that you need someone to create this presence of compassion for you.

Know there is a way out. It starts with you taking new action. Your role is key. Right now, it may be less likely that your significant other can change and more likely that you can make change.

Addiction interrupts brain functioning. It’s likely that all of your significant other’s words come through the the filter of impaired brain functioning. Addiction disruption impacts your brain as well, but right now, it’s likely you have more capacity to change than your significant other.

Many partners think, “why do I need to change? It’s not me who has the problem.”

You need to change because what you’ve been doing has not been working. What you’ve been doing in some way, even a small way, has played a role in the addictive cycle.

It’s likely the addiction disruption has been building for years. Your significant other is at the epicenter. You, as their significant other are in the next ring out from the epicenter. Of course, you’ve received impact, maybe for years.

The number one false belief that contributes to your pain and your significant other not changing is the addiction problem is solved by fixing the one with the addiction.

There are multiple reasons why this belief is so strong. One is that it if you catch the problem early enough it may work, at least for a while.

But then it comes back. It may feel hopeless. It’s not.

There are antidotes, which may or may not be helpful to you right now. If not now, later.

Recognize that your family structure (rules, routines, communication, relationships, etc) has been impacted to defend agains addiction, but inadvertently created an environment that allowed addiction to grow.
Include an and/both focus, fluidly shifting back and forth between the problem and what surrounds the problem. Your feelings are in the context.
Intend to learn new skills so you can better manage the ups and downs and have a new conversation.
Develop a method of honest communication with yourself about what you can and cannot do and the impact it has on you.

Criteria for the Conversation

Ask, “what drives my approach in past communication with my child?” Likely, this approach will not produce the result you intend. So, what’s a new conversation look like?

I’m reminded of a wise mentor I had back in the 80’s and 90’s who said, “Only in the presence of compassion will a person allow themselves to see the truth.”

Your job in this new conversation is to create conditions of compassion for your significant other. Here’s some do’s and don’t to help you navigate the conversation:

Do set an intention to increase trust and depth in your connection.
Do create an atmosphere of compassion for yourself. If you can’t do this, reach out to someone who can create an atmosphere of compassion for you.
Do know that your feelings are your responsibility. Don’t put your feelings on your significant other
Don’t start with your feelings about your significant other’s bad behavior.
Do be aware of your areas of vulnerability to loosing your cool, and your strengths to mange them.
Do take a break if your emotions escalate. Temporarily remove yourself and calm yourself down. If you can’t do this, reach out to someone who can create an atmosphere of compassion for you.

Your significant others’s crisis will feel as if you must act immediately. Sure, when it’s life or death you must act. Any person with compassion, if they see someone who walks in front of a bus they’ll use force and pull them away from getting hit by the bus. This is a natural tendency.

Thick or thin, there’s tentacles of love between you and your significant other. If you act from this alone, you’re in trouble. Addiction will manipulate the connection of love every time. You must realize addiction is not personal. In fact, addiction exploits the connection. The positive connection of love is a threat to the connection addiction has with your significant other. Addiction will not roll over. Addiction will fight.

Addiction sees you as their killer. Addiction will attempt to suck you into a fight. You’ll lose every time. When you talk to your significant other, imagine that you’re talking to addiction. If you approach a conversation as if you’re talking to the significant other you remember, the significant other you love, you’re inviting addiction to take advantage. Even when your loved one’s words sound sincere, it is very possible addiction will not allow your significant other to do what they say.

So, an optimal the first step in having a conversation is to create an environment of compassion for your significant other. This may be possible and may not. It may be the only step needed, but you may need to do it over and over.

Your significant other must feel the difference between this approach and every other approach to a conversation you’ve ever had. This is a huge task. You must prepare yourself.

In your thinking, separate your loved one from addiction. Even when your significant other is clean and sober, realize you cannot have a conversation with them without addiction manipulating your words, twisting meaning, and engaging in battle with you. Addiction may be threatened and resort to any means possible to deter your attempts to connect in any real way.

Unless a bus is bearing down on your significant other, it is not your responsibility to get in the way of your significant other feeling the weight of their own behavior. Your significant other needs to feel the pain or they have no motivation to change. Unless a bus is bearing down on them, helping them may inadvertently help addiction.

Look into their eyes. Breathe deeply. Look for what’s behind their eyes. What is the emotion you see or imagine behind their eyes. Connect with that emotion. Be with that emotion. Ask about that emotion. Guess what’s it’s like for your significant other. Be willing to be wrong. Stay connected to that feeling inside your own body. This, more than anything is your barometer to your moment by moment decisions to say anything or just be with their pain, anger, and despair.

Do not react to their anger. It’s crucial that you stay connected to that place inside. It’s crucial that you are grounded and present. Keep the tone of your voice slow and calm. Let them dance around you. Refuse to engage in the dance, the dance of the past.

I know the past patterns will be stirred up in you. This is probably not the time to talk about them. Be aware of your own feelings. Feelings, not thoughts. Feelings are one word. Sentences are thoughts. You want to connect with your own feelings. Own them. Be with them. Be with your significant other’s feelings. The more you sit with your feelings the greater the possibility they will feel their own feelings.

This is an opportunity for you to have your own transformation. You are more in control of your change, than you are of your significant other’s change.

A conversation may or may not be useful for your situation. Don’t expect a conversation to change anything quickly. Addiction is a slow gradual process. So is healing.

It’s likely this problem will not go away in a few days or few weeks. Take it seriously.

Next Steps

First, do what you need to do to manage the crisis with your significant other. Do what they cannot do for themself, but allow them to feel the weight of their own behavior. They’re an adult. Consider allowing natural consequences.

Second, whether it’s just you or you and others in your family, it’s optimal to see addiction as an opportunity to change. The opportunity is to include an and/both focus, fluidly shifting back and forth between the problem and what surrounds the problem. You and your family surround the problem. Much can be done to help increase protective factors in your family, and if applicable to create an environment that is inhospitable to active addiction.

Third, create your own support systems to learn, practice and integrate aspects of the above that serve you best. Through this process you’ll be needing to make important decisions. Staying engaged with these resources over time will support you to make best decisions.

There are multiple pathways to individual and family recovery. Familiarize yourself with the possibilities. Ideally, you’ll look into the multiple avenues available to you, choose what fits for you, and stay engaged over time. (link to Multiple Pathways pdf)

Potential Support Systems

Check out 2-3 different therapists
Get a recovery coach
Go to Al Anon groups or other support groups
Research support in your local community

Online Crisis group provides structure, connection with likeminded others, and natural opportunities for skill building

The structure of the online groups starts with opportunities for you to navigate the continuum between anonymity and openly sharing who you are and details you wish to share about your situation.

The structure supports you to self select what is most appropriate for you. You can start with anonymity and can move to openly sharing details of your situation. You will have choice each step of the way. The online groups are not facebook groups.

All of the groups provide opportunities for you to learn and practice:

Building trust
Boundaries
Communication skills
Conflict resolution skills
Problem solving skills

These are all skills you can implement into your family when you choose.

The objective of the Crisis group is to know what contributes to crisis, what you can do to defuse it, understand how best use your relationship to stay connected with your loved one, and inspire action that best meets your goals.

The Crisis group will meet online 3 times a week for an hour. Half of the time will be spent with an opening, check in’s, and specific content delivery on a 12 week rotation. The other half of the time is for group members to share what has worked and not relative to the topic, reflections, questions and coaching.

Here’s an example of topics:

The key under every strategy to help you navigate crisis
Learn the do’s & don’t’s for conversations with your loved one
Learn deescalation techniques
Find your criteria for decision making in any situation

Addiction will minimize crisis. Take it seriously.

You have an option between individual coaching or group coaching

The objective of the Crisis group is to support you to best address crisis when it arises. You’ll learn how to best use internal and external resources as you navigate before, during, and after a crisis. It’s not same for each person’s situation.

The Crisis group will meet online three times a week for an hour. Half of the time will be spent with an opening, check in’s, and specific content delivery. The other half of the time is for group members to share what has worked and relative to the topic, and what hasn’t worked. It’s a time to ask questions, get coaching, and if you like, ask for an accountability buddy from the group.

Here’s an example of topics:

Strategies to help in crisis and how to know what’s best for your situation
Learn the do’s & don’t’s for conversations with your loved one
Learn deescalation techniques

It’s great when a crisis is a wakeup call that results in longterm change, but with addiction it’s likely the impaired brain of addiction is stronger then a wakeup call. Your role is to support your loved one, not addiction. There will be a series of decisions to be made. The Crisis group is an environment of likeminded people to support you brainstorming options and providing resources for you to make decisions that are best for you.

The crisis of your loved one comes with a message and an opportunity. Your loved one cannot recognize it. But with your abilities to stay regulated and calm, it’s much more likely that you can use crisis to make new decisions.

Take crisis seriously.

You have choices: an online group or individual coaching.