12 Step Family

Welcome to the 12 Keys series of blog posts which will, month by month, explain the 12 Keys of Sanity and give you detailed ideas and activities to help you bring them alive in your life. This post will is the first in a month-long series that will post on Developing Relationships with Others.

Recently I received this post from a reader:

Dear Bev, after being married to an alchoholic for 20 years, I got divorced, I met a wonderful man I was dating for almost 5 years. We only saw each other on the weekends. As we became closer it became clear he is also an alchoholic and partier & to top it off his 2 adult children are drug users. I am devistated. I feel duped and stupid. How did I miss the signs this time? – Feeling betrayed…

Dear Betrayed,

First of all, thank you so much for your note and question. Your willingness to put out there the exact dilemma that so many ex-spouses of alcoholics/addicts face will help many others better understand the seeming insanity of what has happened to you.

Many people who marry an active addict the first time around often find an equally dysfunctional person the second time around (and in some cases the 3rd, 4th, and 5th time as well…).

So, what is that about and what does this have to do with the 3rd Key to Sanity: Developing Loving Relationships with Others?

Everyday of our lives, we are bombarded with images of what the ideal mate looks like, talks like, acts like. We see, on television and in the movies, people with perfect bodies, perfect jobs, perfect smiles, and lots and lots of money and we see what they have as what we really want, but yet, the only place we see life playing out like that is on fictionalized shows and in movies. We may go to church, temple, mosque or synagogue and get a different perspective on what good and perfect mean and begin to develop ideals that compete with those of the media and culture around us.

Then, deep inside of us are the tapes we’ve been playing since our childhood of what we are worth, who we deserve, what we can get in life and what kind of life we will live. If our parents were dysfunctional in anyway and/or if they abused us emotionally or physically, we carry those tapes of being less than. If we were sexually abused by anyone, in our family or outside of our family, we carry those tapes of shame and unworthiness.

When we look for a mate initially, we carry all of these competing views of ourselves and others along for the search. Unless we have developed a very strong relationship with a Higher Power along with a very healthy, sense of self and a relationship with ourselves that consciously and subconsciously knows what is best for us and will accept nothing less than that, chances are, our choices may have been less than ideal. Then, once we have a marriage, we begin to think of ourselves in certain ways and to see our lives in certain ways based on what we experience in relation to our mate. And if that mate is an active alcoholic/addict, we may feel extremely isolated, confused, lonely, and afraid. How did this person who we loved so much turn into such a_________________ (you fill in the blank- monster, meanie,etc.)

So, there we are in a marriage with another person who at first appeared to be very much in sync with who/what we wanted in life, but now, as we look deeper, has lots of issues that we have no idea how to cope with. Being stuck like that, many of us put the dysfunctional coping mechanisms we learned at home into place. We cry, sulk, scream and yell to get them to behave better toward us. When these don’t work, we ignore, get bitter, put our interests and energy elsewhere, and, if we don’t have the means or guts to GET OUT, or if our religious beliefs encourage us to stick it out NO MATTER WHAT, we ENDURE.

Perhaps you can relate to that scenario. Your story may be quite different. If possible, find a piece of it that works for you and stay with me here.

So, after awhile, six months, six years, 12 years, 20 years, 35 years later, you change your mind. You are done enduring and decide to get the heck out of this unendurable marriage and start over. So you do. Maybe your spouse did the unspeakable: cheated on you, and that was your breaking point. Or maybe after the 16th time they cheated on you, you realized this was not going to get better and you left. Or maybe they left you for the other woman/man. Anyway, you get the picture. The marriage is OVER, done, finished.

You are out on your own, finally out from under the thumb of this person who “made you so miserable.”

Now what?

For many who find themselves in this position, it’s lonely! Even though the marriage was lonely, someone was at least THERE. There was a warm body on the other side of the bed or in the next room and not everything about the marriage was bad, etc., etc., …Of course, not everyone is that upset. The freedom can be intoxicating! the chance to meet others and have a good time is grand.

But now what?

All of the above is written to set the scenario for meeting partner #2. After whatever amount of time you have taken to ‘get over’ the last one, you begin to look for your next mate. Perhaps you hardly have to look at all and they find you…or perhaps you spend years looking. Either way, the hunt is on.

Finally, you meet. Certain that this time will be different, you find someone who is not an alcoholic, not an addict, not a…the list goes on. Or so you think. So you get together to live happily ever after. Sometimes the honeymoon lasts weeks, sometimes years. But eventually, it comes out: They may not be an alcoholic, but they may instead take pills or have a sex addiction or a gambling addiction. And there you are again in your own new version of the same Hell you endured the last time around…or maybe something even worse…

What went wrong?

The reason Key 3: Developing Relationships with Other People comes 3rd and not 1st, is that without good strong inner work on ourselves, our relationships with others will often come up short. What I’m saying here is that the relationships we have with others are much more about us than about them! and the kinds of people we choose to have in our lives are also much more about us than about them!

Don’t get me wrong. I’m not saying that life with an alcoholic or addict is easy. I’m not saying that if you aren’t yet married and you find that your partner is deeply troubled (sex addict, drug addict, gambler, alcoholic, etc.) you shouldn’t run as fast and as far as you can.

What I am saying is that when you look at who you are involved with, who your friends are or aren’t (if you don’t have any), or who you choose to end up with as a partner, the most important person in the relationship vis-a-vis these choices can be found right in your own mirror.

So, what does this all mean?

As shared at the beginning of this post, all kinds of outside input from society, school, friends, and parents, contribute to how we see ourselves and what we think we are worthy of in life. When we really want the perfect mate, but on some level feel we aren’t worthy of him or her, the feelings will often win out. Getting our insides congruent with our outsides, our feelings congruent with our desires, is one piece of the puzzle of finding the right person. Jerry and Esther Hicks write about this in all of their books about the Law of Attraction.

Another key to becoming congruent on the level of feeling, is to do the deeper work of healing the sorrow of a less than perfect childhood and unhappy1st marriage. This can be approached through therapy, 12 step work, parts work, voice dialogue, and/or other emotional healing modalities.

Life choices happen on so many levels, many of which are below the surface of our conscious awareness. Once we are in a difficult situation, it can be much more difficult and complicated to get out of it than it was to get into it in the first place.

For those who are not yet involved in a first or second dysfunctional relationship, yet have a history of family dysfunction behind them, the best advice is to do the inner work first. I remember being given that advice and feeling too anxious to get my life moving toward the future, marriage, kids, etc… Maybe you remember that feeling too?

But wherever you are planted, it is never too late to begin the inner work of healing. The 12 Keys of Sanity which culminate in Key 12 “Being a Loving Mirror” provide a series of recovery principles designed to help you see yourself as the person you need to change in your life in order to make your life better! This may be a harsh pill to swallow, but it is true.

For some, these principles alone provide a good foundation. For others, the support of others is crucial…This can come in the form of a recovery coach to help you move in the direction of your dreams while looking honestly at what is going on in your present life that you may want/need to look at in order to get there!
For others, who have experienced severe trauma or distress, the help of a coach can be supplemented by that of a therapist.

Many find help in a group setting. There are Alanon and Naranon meetings all over the country and all over the world. Once you start going, get a sponsor and begin the 12 steps of recovery, where tremendous healing can be found. I work the steps daily and have found tremendous strength and healing in them. But for me and many others, more help was needed.

To add to your recovery by combining the help of a group with that of a coach, feel free to join a Loving Mirror Coaching Group. For 12 weeks, you will gain the insights and professional guidance of a Family Recovery Coach, along with the support of a group of others who have decided to take the lead in their lives in learning how to improve their relationship with themselves and the others in their lives. It’s an inexpensive way to have both a coach and a support group, all in one and the meetings are as close as your phone! A new group starts tomorrow, Wednesday, 8-3-11 at 8 PM ET. To learn more, click here.

So, dear reader, there you are with your boyfriend of five years who turns out to be a drinker, a partier and the parent of 2 adult drug addicts. Only you can decide if you have hit the jackpot in a negative or positive way. Only you can decide if your best bet is to cut your losses and GET OUT or to stick around and play the song again.

If you decide to stay, if you do the INNER work, this time CAN be different. That may mean he will decide to get well due to your example OR it may mean your interests will become so blatantly dissimilar, that one or both of you may leave the relationship.

If you decide to leave, AND are willing to let go of relationships for awhile while you do the INNER work, next time CAN be different!

If you simply keep blaming this whole repeat performance on the OTHERS, chances are, you WILL keep bringing dysfunctional people into your life – to repeat the performance again and again….and only once you realize that the only constant in the play of dysfunctional people in and out of your life is YOU, will you start to decide it is time to begin an inner journey of your own.

By building a relationship with yourself first, your chance at building a great relationship with others will be greatly enhanced.

If I can be of further help to you on your journey, give me a call and we can set up a time to talk further.

All the best,

Coach Bev

Beverly A. Buncher, MA, PCC, CTPC

ICF Professional Certified Coach

Recovery – True Purpose – Career – Life

www.beverlybuncher.com
www.12stepfamily.com
786 859 4050

“Imagine a world where every addict has the opportunity and support needed to build a sober lifetime one moment at a time, and every family has the benefit of a coach to help them blaze the trail to sobriety in their home. Imagine a world without relapse.”
Join an ongoing coaching group and practice your Loving Mirror skills. Go to www.beverlybuncher.com/lovingmirror/ to register today!

Author of the forthcoming book Chaos to Sanity: Transform Your Life with the 12 Keys to Sanity

If there is a using addict in your life, download my free e-book on how to transform the chaos to sanity at www.theempowermentcoach.net and read my blog at www.12stepfamily.com

Enjoy my weekly newsletter Life Purpose in Recovery delivered right to your email and gain access to materials on the 12 Keys to Sanity for Family Members! Sign up here: http://forms.aweber.com/form/11/885999311.htm

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Ever notice how addicting being involved with an addict or alcoholic can be? The up and down of it that’s almost like an adrenalin rush; the feeling of panic when you are waiting for the addict to come home; the frustration of trying so hard to get through to someone who appears to be completely unreasonable; the continuing obsession of the mind with the addict’s behavior; the isolation and shame that only grow with time.

When the addict is a spouse, a lover or a friend, there is this inexplicable attachment to a person who keeps doing the wrong thing. They act badly and yet, you keep coming back again and again for more. When you confide your situation to others they ask: Why do you stay? “I love him/her” you answer. And a part of you believes that, while another part of you knows that you are as addicted to the addict as the addict is to the drink or fix.

When the addict is your child (whether 16 or 60) you may find yourself helping him or her again and again though the help doesn’t seem to do anything but keep them alive and using their drug of choice. Sobriety seems like the last thing they want or can attain, and yet, you keep giving them the money they need to survive (so they can use all they have for their drug).

Whether it is love or addiction, being with an addict can be all-consuming, but it doesn’t have to be. And in fact, when it isn’t, your ability to help the addict actually increases.

So, it is possible to get your life back, regardless of whether the addict decides to stop using or not. The only question is how?

For one thing, remember the four foundations of family recovery: self-care, being a loving person, setting boundaries, and getting support.

Self care, in particular, can help you get your life back. Self care is key to getting your life back because it takes the addict out of the center of your awareness. Once you begin taking care of yourself, feeling healthy, calm and fit can become a positive addiction. You may take up jogging, swimming, or taking a power walk everyday. All of these activities can help you clear your mind and relax. Every moment spent focusing on a positive, healthy activity or outlet for your energy is time spent letting go of your obsession with the addict.

Make a list of all the things in your life you have been neglecting, from eating healthy, to going to the dentist, to having a yearly physical, to taking a walk, to having fun with friends regularly. Choose one or two this week to add to your life. Continue to add one each week, until you find yourself taking personal responsibility for your own health and well-being.

Untangling your life from that of an addict doesn’t necessarily mean leaving the addict. It does however, mean leaving behind the addictive aspect of your relationship to your addict.Come back to the blog in a day or two to learn about how being a loving person can help you get your life back!

Coach Bev
Beverly A. Buncher, MA, CEC
786 859 4050
www.theempowermentcoach.net
www.12stepfamily.com
www.familyrecoverycoach.org
www.intherooms.com
www.lifepurposeinrecovery.com

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This coming weekend, Gold Coast NA will have their annual Memorial Day Convention in South Florida, which it has invited Naranon to participate in for the 3rd year in a row!

Members of the family group are coming from all over the state and even the continent! Our couples speakers hail from Canada this year!

This year’s Naranon convention will have two tracks:

Track One is a Step Workshop: Travel through Steps One to Twelve. Go through all 12 steps, the heart of the program. By the end of this workshop, you will have experienced and worked on steps 1-9 (the growth steps) and be ready to live in steps 10-12 (also known as the maintenance steps or the living steps). Though you still may have some additional work to do at home, you will also have gained skills that will allow you to take a newcomer through the steps, a skill that will help you help others as well as yourself. You will be given a notebook and pen for your work or may bring your own laptop or writing tools. If you plan to come to this track, please RSVP to SESHGROUP@hotmail.com so that the organizers can make sure there are enough materials for you (notebooks, handouts, etc.)

Track Two is a series of Nar-anon Meetings built around the conference theme of Pathways to Serenity: Find out how Nar-anon can take you from chaos to serenity by learning about and sharing your experience, strength, and hope on the topics of the slogans, sponsorship, detachment, the steps, the tools and the serenity prayer. The conference will be held at the Bahia Mar Hotel on Las Olas Beach in Fort Lauderdale. If you are related to or affected by an addict, you are invited. Registration is $15 at the door. Here are some more details if you would like to attend:

“PATHWAYS TO SERENITY”
MEMORIAL DAY WEEKEND CONVENTION
MAY 28-30, 2010
WHERE: Bahia Mar Beach Resort
801 Seabreeze Blvd, Fort Lauderdale, FL 33316
Directions: From I-95 head east on Sunrise Blvd
to A1A, turn right/south to Hotel 2.5 miles on right at the overpass

~In addition to regular scheduled recovery meetings,
there will be an opportunity to participate in a weekend long
12 step workshop and an 18 & Under Meeting~
www.Nar-Anon.org

For additional information or to RSVP for the step workshop: contact SESHGROUP@hotmail.com or call
Erin 954-554-9544, Robyn 954-258-1771, or Karen 954-709-1630

For information on NA’s GCCNA convention and activities please see:

http://www.sfrna.org

See you there!

Coach Bev

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The textbook of AA, referred to as the Big Book, talks about the detrimental effect that resentment can have on a person’s recovery. For the co-addict or co-alcoholic, the effect of resentment may not start a binge or substance relapse, but can turn into a codependent relapse that can get the whole family off kilter!

Yes, you are that powerful. If you’ve been reading for awhile, you are probably familiar with my thinking on this: You do have tremendous power in the family. While you didn’t cause, cannot control, and can’t cure the addict’s using, you can contribute to the addictive behavior by continuing to be actively addicted to your addict and all of the craziness that surrounds the using lifestyle.

Your power comes from recovering from co-addiction and being a living example of sane happy living. So, what role does forgiveness play in this?

It’s easy to resent the addict, his dealers, his doctors, his drinking buddies, her pimp, her boyfriend, her husband, his wife, etc. When we are in the “poor me’s” about how sad and awful it is to be married/related to an addict and about how desparate the situation is, sometimes blaming others in the addict’s life is the only comfort we can find.

But, spending your precious energy and time on who done your addict and you wrong over the years just doesn’t help. In fact, it hurts. How? Well for one thing, it keeps the focus where it needn’t be: on things you have NO control over. For another, left unbridled, such unforgiveness and resentment can only do you and your addict harm. Over time, it will grow and fester into hate, fear, envy, anger and discouragement that will only hurt the person who dwells on it.

Now this isn’t to say that it is not natural to have those feelings. It is. But the question is, what do you, as a recovering co-addict, do with these feelings?

In the 12 step programs, forgiveness plays a big role: forgiveness of self and others. The steps provide a mechanism to forgive through first becoming aware of the feelings, then asking HP to remove them, then making amends to people we’ve harmed, and then staying spiritually fit, which includes praying for people who have harmed us daily in order to let go of the negative feelings we harbor about them.

Forgiveness is not at all an unselfish act. It is something we do for our own benefit. Unable to handle the festering without becoming bitter, miserable human beings, we forgive others for what they have done to us in order to free ourselves of the bad feelings that go along with a victim mentality.

There’s a saying in the program: “There are no victims. There are only volunteers.”

The beauty of working a recovery program is that it gives us tools to no longer walk blindly through victimhood. We wake up to our own role in the family illness of addiction and have the power of choice to get well and move our lives forward. Forgiveness is one of the tools and the blessings of this process.

If you would benefit from getting help with your forgiveness work, go to Nar-Anon and/or Alanon meetings, work the steps with a sponsor. As we say in the program: “It works if you work it!”

A recovery coach can help with the process as well. Armed with lots of unique methods, techniques, and technologies of growth, a recovery coach is there to help you move forward in your own life and let go of the unproductive attitudes and behaviors of the family disease.

Call me at 786 859 4050 to set up a complimentary consult. Let’s explore the possibilities of how family recovery coaching could help you move forward!

And if you are ready for more advanced steps in your own recovery, take a look at my Life Purpose In Recovery Blog ( www.lifepurposeinrecovery.com ) to learn more about how you can find your very unique and specific life purpose. I’m here. Give me a call today and let’s talk!

All the best,

Coach Bev

Beverly Buncher, MA, CEC, CLPF
Family Recovery Coach/True Purpose Coach
www.theempowermentcoach.net
www.lifepurposeinrecovery.com
www.12stepfamily.com
www.familyrecoverycoach.com
786 859 4050

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Are you trying to figure out if there is more to your life than what you have experienced so far?

Do you know why you are here? What your own specific life purpose truly is?

Isn’t it time you found out?

If you think there is more and have been looking in all the wrong places, that doesn’t mean there isn’t more. There is!
Knowing your unique life purpose and gaining the skills to manifest it is about as cool as life gets!

To help you do so, I’m offering a nine week teleseminar called

True Purpose: Life Purpose in Recovery.

Take this course and take YOUR recovery to the next level and beyond!

Learn more at:

http://www.lifepurposeinrecovery.com/2010/05/more-details-about-upcoming-life.html

Warning: This course is for people who already have some recovery under their belt. To find out if you qualify, take the survey listed on my life purpose in recovery blog (see above) or give me a call at 786 859 4050.

All the best,

Coach Bev

Beverly A. Buncher, MA CEC
Family Recovery Coach
www.lifepurposeinrecovery.com
www.theempowermentcoach.net
www.familyrecoverycoach.org
786 859 4050

And remember to call for a complimentary consult if you are looking for help finding your purpose or with the addiction issues of a relative or a friend or with your own recovery from a substance or behavior of your own.

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Did you ever meet someone who is always cranky? Or constantly complaining about something? Or desparately in need of attention? Chances are, that person is being run by a part of their self that might do better with some healthy, uplifting attention….To learn more about how ego parts could be running your show and what you can do about it, read on…

On Sunday, Darren Littlejohn, author of 12 Step Buddhist, spoke to a large audience of In the Room members in South Florida in a workshop sponsored by In the Rooms and The Treatment Center. The message I got from his talk is that regardless of what we do to grow our recovery, 12 steps are the foundation and looking to enhance the process with additional inner work does really help. In Darren’s case, he is a Buddhist and he shared meditative techniques with the audience as well as a technique he called “Aspects of Self”.

According to Darren, his Zen teacher studied with the creators of Voice Dialogue, Sidra and Hal Stone, and developed a Zen adaptation of their work, which Darren further adapted into what he calls “Aspects of Self”. (An interesting look at Voice Dialogue, developed by the Stones, can be found in their book Embracing Our Selves: The Voice Dialogue Manual, in which they discuss the parts of self that can plague us when kept unconscious, but can add to the strength of one’s self, when respected, accepted and understood.)

In Darren’s ‘Aspects of Self’ part of the workshop, he asked audience members to get in touch with and then “be” different aspects of themselves aloud in answer to specific questions he asked. For instance, he asked people to “be” their controller and then he asked the controllers questions aloud and asked them to answer aloud. Then he called on individuals in the audience to tell the group what they, as the controller, had to say about different things like what their job is, how they get along with others, Higher Power, etc.

The interesting part came when he asked people to take on the persona of the addict within them. One by one, members of the audience shared their feelings as ‘the addict’ and you could feel a subtle shift as people gave voice to their addict and learned from the addict in the people around them.

As someone who does this work a lot, both individually and with clients, in a written form, I found Darren’s workshop valuable in that it opened doors for me to further work with my own inner addict, inner controller, and others who were mentioned.

When I do this work with my clients, I call it ‘Parts Work’. Trained by Tim Kelley, founder of the True Purpose Coaching Method and author of True Purpose: 12 Strategies to Discover the Difference You are Meant to Make, I find parts work to be one of the most powerful tools in my coaching repertoire, especially for clients in recovery from substances, behaviors, and codependency.

Parts work is designed to allow the participant to get to know all of the disparate parts of self that have long been pushed down yet keep popping up and wreaking havoc on everyday life. By forming a respectful relationship with one’s parts, or to use Littlejohn’s language, ‘aspects of self’, the recovering person now has a way to learn more about the motivations behind the character defects that run so much of the show, and gains tools to negotiate with the parts and help them learn new ways of being and becoming aligned with the recovering person’s new, healthier lifestyle.

To take it a step further, when I do Life Purpose work with clients, through which they get detailed, useful information on why they are here and what specific contribution they are meant to make in this lifetime, I teach them parts work to help them break through the blocks that are keeping them from manifesting their purpose. In fact, parts work is an excellent tool to align one’s ego parts with the intention of one’s soul, also known as one’s life purpose.

I completely agree with Darren’s invitation to start with the steps, consider them your foundation, and then move beyond them to gain additional inner and outer growth. They provide us the ability to clean up our relationships with God, ourselves and other human beings. In two weeks, I’ll be leading a 12 step weekend workshop at the GCNA Naranon Memorial Day 2010 Convention at Bahia Mar Hotel. (Go to www.Nar-Anon.org for more information on this convention or contact me) I do this work with others because of the foundational nature of the steps to recovery. They provide a priceless paradigm for recovery that is open to enhancement and expansion. Indeed, for many of us, there is more out there to help us grow that can help us go even further in these three vital relationships of God, self and other that the Steps guide us to heal. Therapy, coaching, and meditative practices to name a few.

Parts Work, too, is one of the many paths available to bring about this inner healing. Neither Darren, nor Tim Kelley, nor the Stones, invented the idea of addressing the parts of the ego and becoming a more integrated, whole person as a result. In the 1970′s, Depth Psychologist Ira Progoff wrote At A Journal Workshop: Writing to Access the Power of the Unconscious and Evoke Creative Ability which includes an entire section called The Dialogue Dimension, in which he has participants do dialogues with persons, works, the body, events, situations and circumstances and society. In a later chapter, he invites them to dialogue with their Inner Wisdom. (For more information, go to www.intensivejournal.org.)

I attended his Intensive Journal workshops regularly through the 1980′s and found them hugely helpful in my ability to grow my relationship with my Higher Power as well as to better understand my relationship to my body and wrote an article on the intensive journal and the 12 steps (under the pseudonym Jane A.) which I will be happy to send you if you contact me. Now, as a result of studying with Tim, I’ve taken this work much further, both in relation to my ego parts and in relation to Higher Power, which he refers to as ‘Trusted Source’.

Tim Kelley’s unique contribution to this work can be found in his approach which guides clients to align parts to purpose. Through working with Tim and then sharing this work with my clients in recovery, I’ve witnessed and had the privilege of being a part of transformations that have allowed people to move forward tremendously in their recovery and in their lives. You can order Tim’s book True Purpose by going to http://www.kickstartcart.com/app/?af=1043560 .

If you would like to learn more about parts work and/or the life purpose in recovery work that I do with clients, please contact me for a complimentary consult or visit my blog at www.lifepurposeinrecovery.com and take the survey to see if you have enough recovery under your belt to do this work and find your life purpose. I am more than willing to meet with you by phone or in person to introduce you to this work and help you find how it could help you move your recovery to the next level!

Til next time,

All the best!

Coach Bev

Beverly A. Buncher, MA CEC CLPF
Family Recovery Coach (aka The Empowerment Coach)
www.lifepurposeinrecovery.com
www.theempowermentcoach.net
www.12stepfamily.com
www.familyrecoverycoach.org

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Are you related to an active addict whose behavior you find less than acceptable?
One of the challenges of being in relationship with some actively addicted, no matter what the substance or behavior, can be dealing with the feelings their actions bring up in you. Feelings like embarrassment, fear, horror, shock and shame can become your daily fare during the worst part of their addiction unless and until you decide to chane the way you see yourself in relation to them.

Too often, co-addicts see themselves as connected to the hips of their addicted loved ones (and everyone else in their lives for that matter).

But it doesn’t have to be that way. Fact is they are not you and you are not them. Unless you are participating in behavior you find abhorant, it is possible to let go of the shame and other toxic emotions that come up for you when you either observe or hear about their antics.

Three Alanon/Naranon slogans provide steppingstones along the path to your own peace of mind. I’ll list them here. Please tune back to this blog for a more in depth look at how these and other words of wisdom can set you free:
1. Detach with love (for yourself).
2. LIVE and let live!
3. Let go and let God.

Come back soon to get more info on how these ad other ideas can free you from the self-imposed prison of being totally overwhelmed by someone else’s addiction!

Til then,contact me for a complimentary consult at Contact Us and write “complimentary consult” in. The comment box.

Enjoy the day.

All the best!

Coach Bev
Beverly A. Buncher, MA, CEC
Family Recovery Coach
AKA The Empowerment Coach
www.theempowermentcoach.net
www.intherooms.com
www.familyrecoverycoach.org
www.facebook.com (go to the fan page for The Empowerment Coach)

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When I think about the challenges we face in terms of how many years it took to create them and how many years it could take to correct their results, I feel overwhelmed. But when I look at today, and all that I am doing to make my world work better right in this moment, and when I then turn my attention to the beautfiful sky, the grass beneath my feet and and the smiling children I see as I walk down the street, I feel much better.

I always have a choice: take life as a whole and feel dwarfed by it or take life in small chunks and feel just right in it. I cannot fix everyone or everything, and to be honest, I cannot fix anyone outside of myself. But I can fix myself, bit by bit and I can make an impact on those around me by becoming a person they want to emulate and by no longer trying to coerce them into being the way I want them to be.

This job, of fixing myself, one day at a time; of letting others be themselves, one day at a time; is something I am capable of and which will bear positive fruits if I am diligent in its pursuit. Of course, it’s more appealing to look at others’ lives, searching for what is wrong and pointing it out. It allows me to keep the focus out there rather than in here, on my own life, where it belongs. And when I’ve got my lens backwards like that (like in the acceptance story in the Big Book of Alcoholics Anonymous), I’m not as happy as I could be in this moment because I’ve got my focus on things I cannot ever change rather than on things I am capable of making better.

Staying in this day is like that too. When I keep my focus on this day, I can enjoy it. When my mind is preoccupied and focused on the days behind or the days ahead, I’m not present to exactly what is going on in my life right now and so I’m missing the moments of my life as they are occuring. Plus, I’m unhappy, because my mind is either caught in regret or longing for the past or worried and anxious about a future that has not yet come.

So my job is simple, though not easy: to stay in this moment with the focus on myself. Here’s an exercise I use when I become aware that I am forgetting to stay here and now. Feel free to try it and let me know how it works for you:

Wherever you are, whatever you are doing, take a deep breath. Look at your thoughts without getting caught up in them and see where they are taking you.Let them go as you slowly breathe out and bring your focus back to yourself. Watch what you are doing in this moment. Are you peeling a carrot? Driving a car? Walking down the street?

Describe your actions to yourself in your mind. In other words, allow yourself to say to yourself, “I am now peeling a carrot (or driving a car or whatever). My right hand is holding the peeler and my left hand is holding the carrot. I am bringing the peeler to the top of the carrot and moving the blade down the side of the carrot and watching it peel off the top layer.”

Focusing in this way gives the mind a very present moment focus. Then take a look at the carrot as if you have never seen one before. Use what Zen calls “beginners mind” to view that carrot. See your hand and fingers as if for the first time, allowing your eyes to alight on each finger, each knuckle, each pore.

This very simple exercise takes our awareness right into the present moment. Anytime we do it, we are giving ourselves a break from the rash of anxious and terrorizing thoughts that for many have become daily fare. Since the mind can only focus on one thing at a time, doing this frees the mind from the constant pull of the past and future and helps us stay focused in the moment.

In his book, The Presence Process, author Michael Brown calls this Present Moment Awareness. Whenever you look around you and allow your focus to be on this moment, you free yourself just a little bit more from that past-future pull, from obsessing, from an unhappiness that may have become your daily fare.

It is possible to become free of that haunting sadness that often becomes the co-addict’s habit. Just by living each moment, one activity at a time, one thought at a time, we can begin to become whole again, focused in the moment and enjoying the gifts of peace and serenity that each moment has the potential to bring us.

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As part of 12StepFamily.com’s new “Recovery Book Reviews,” we have decided to review, “The Tao of Sobriety: Helping You to Recover from Alcohol and Drug Addiction.” The Tao of Sobriety was co-authored by David Gregson, Jay S. Efran, and G. Alan Marlat.

The book follows the tradition of “The Tao of…” books, which stem from the ancient Chinese religion Taoism. In Chinese, “Tao” refers to the “way,” “path,” “process,” “practice” or “principle.” The basic concept of Tao is to reach the core or the essence of the thing in reference, in this case Sobriety.

A review by Stephanie S. Covington, who authored “Helping Women Recover and A Woman’s Way Through the Twelve Steps,” described The Tao of Sobriety as “A clear, accessible, and insightful guide that draws on the profound wisdom of the Eastern world.”

As our Recovery Book Reviews recommendation, The Tao of Sobriety is great for those in recovery, as well as family and friends of those in recovery. The book masterfully uses the enduring insight of Taoism to help change the lives of those who are suffering by imparting its peaceful and healthy ways. For those who are seeking a serene and harmonious means of dealing with addiction, “The Tao of Sobriety: Helping You to Recover from Alcohol and Drug Addiction” is for you.

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