The ability to Be A Loving Mirror (BALM) takes motivation and understanding. Last month we learned about the three relationships (that with God, self, and others) and how to develop them to help you regain your peace and sanity. Next, There are four cornerstones to help you build the understanding you need to move forward through the four foundations to the goal of Being A Loving Mirror. The first cornerstone is the Four C’s. Learn the 4 C’s well. They will play a KEY role in allowing you to experience the sanity of family recovery. This post, BUT YOU DON’T HAVE TO CONTRIBUTE TO IT is part four of a serialization of my chapter on the 4 C’s in my upcoming book Chaos to Sanity: Transform Your Life with the 12 Keys to Sanity.

But You Don’t Have To Contribute To it

By now, perhaps you are feeling a combination of relief and hopelessness. I’ve told you it’s not your fault your addict uses (Whew! What a relief!) But I’ve also told you that you can’t control or cure the using no matter what you do (Oh no! So now what do I do?).

The way you may be feeling right now, is why I’ve never felt the three C’s are enough information to help family members in their recovery. Fortunately for me, when I first got into recovery I learned about the fourth C and it has made ALL the difference in my life and the life of my family. Once we understand that we didn’t cause it, we can’t control it, and we can’t cure it, it is time to look at our own behavior.

When family members first come in contact with a recovery coach , coaching group, treatment center or Alanon meeting, they can often be heard saying, “Why do I need help? I’m not the one with the problem?” My answer in response to that can be found in the 4 C’s, especially the fourth one: You don’t have to contribute to it!

Though we didn’t cause it, can’t control it and cannot cure it, there are things we can do that could either make the situation better or worse and it is our choice as to whether we want to contribute to our addict’s disease process or to their potential recovery.

By the end of this month of posts, you will know exactly what those things are! Meanwhile, as background to understand this, stay tuned to my next post, where we will begin to understand addiction, co-addiction, and recovery for both the addict and the co-addict.

If you are finding yourself unable to wait, click here for the full chapter (in an older edition) and lots of other 12 Keys handouts, recordings, and information.

–
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

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

For families affected by addiction or other family dysfunction or trauma, the road for the teenagers can be even more treacherous. Dealing with all of the above stresses, while living in a family dealing with its own serious issues of getting and maintaining sobriety, can leave a teen almost on their own, struggling to figure out all of the large and small decisions facing them including, but not limited to this daunting list:
* who to befriend
* what to do about peer pressure or bullying
* which homework to pay most attention to
* what to do when a teacher doesn’t seem to like them
* which activities to get involved in
* how to navigate the various demands and requirements of different teachers
* how to prepare for and when to sign up for the pre-college tests
* which colleges to apply to
* how to find and pursue a passion that could help them figure out what they want to do with their life
* what careers to consider
* which scholarships to apply for
* how to figure out which teachers to ask for recommendations
* what to do with all of the feelings that go with all of these pressures
* what to do when a friend is in trouble or the teen him or herself feels they may be on a path leading to trouble themselves

Here is where a coach can come in. As a teen coach, I can help your teen:
* discover and build on their own strengths
* find and pursue a passion
* navigate the path from high school to college (academically, emotionally, and socially)
* look at their own role and develop their own inner power in their relationships with their teachers, their friends and themselves.

Frankly, while many parents see coaching as a luxury for themselves, they understand it as key to helping their teen turn the high school years from a time of inner confusion and dysfunction to a time of inner growth and understanding that will allow the teen to move as smoothly as possible through what can be a very precarious life transition.

While coaching isn’t all it takes to help a teen figure out next steps in their life, it can be an extremely positive component in the teen’s repertoire of resources.

As a parent, when you find your teen a coach, you find yourself with someone who ‘gets’ the importance of these years and is able to empower your teen to take personal responsibility for the various components in a way you had only dreamed of.

Taking personal responsibility, setting goals, developing action plans and breaking through the obstacles standing in their way are skills your teen will learn with their coach that they will be able to use throughout their college and work careers. Of course, all of this will be learned in the context of a strengths-based approach designed to facilitate your teen’s self understanding as a person who is able to make good decisions and live a positive life.

And of course, you as the parent will not be left out. All of my teen coaching work includes a monthly meeting with the parent (which may be with or without the teen depending on the individual family needs) while respecting the teen’s need for confidentiality.

As a former middle and high school teacher and principal, and a family recovery coach, I understand the general needs of teens as well as the very specific needs of teens operating in an addictive or otherwise broken family system. Let me help you help your teen navigate the challenging transition between childhood and adulthood.

This process can make a huge difference in your teen’s life and remove a huge worry from your parental plate. To receive my Could a Coach Help Your Teen? Questionaire along with my Could a Teen Coach Help You? Questionaire for your teen to take, send an email to recoverycoachbev@theempowermentcoach.net and put TEEN COACHING in the subject line.

To learn more or to sign your teen up for a complimentary coaching session, call me at 786 859 4050 or send me an email along with your phone number and ask me to call you.

Looking forward to hearing from you soon!

Coach Bev

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

So, how will it be this year for you? If you have active addiction in your home, how will you handle the activities of the addict(s)? Their presence or non-presence during the festivities? The odd things they may say or do?

Will you be part of the problem or part of the solution this year? Honestly, that is entirely up to you.

Though not easy to implement, recovery principles are simple. By starting today to implement the four foundations in your life, you can prepare for the holidays in a way that will increase your holiday cheer much more than any presents you buy or food you prepare.

Let’s see how. This four part series will look at all of the four foundations of family recovery: self care, being a loving person, setting boundaries and getting support. Today, let’s look at Self Care:

Holidays are notorious for taking a lot of energy to prepare for. As a person addicted to an addict, you may already have issues with letting yourself go in the service of others.

What if…this year you decide to put your self care first in the middle of everything? How would this look for you?
Would you exercise regularly?
Get more sleep than usual?
Schedule time for Alanon or Naranon meetings that you will attend NO MATTER WHAT?

What’s missing in your self care now? How about considering adding it as a pre-holiday gift to yourself? There are so many kinds of self care to choose from! Send me an email and I’ll send you a self-care self-assessment for you to see how you are doing on your self-care. That could help you choose which aspects you want to gift yourself with this year!

You may be rolling your eyes, but if you take care of yourself, you will be better able to handle WHATEVER comes your way! Don’t you deserve to have a happy holiday season? Start getting ready now by taking a look at your self-care and beginning to make the appointments you have been putting off and doing the nice things for yourself that you can never find the time for!

Send me an email at recoverycoachbev@theempowermentcoach.net to receive a copy of my self care assessment. Usually reserved for students in my Four Foundations of Family Recovery class, I’ll share this with you as my gift.

Keep reading this series over the next week or two to get more tips on how to improve the quality of your holiday season!

And to make your new year even better, consider joining me for my next Four Foundations of Family Recovery teleseminar coming up in January 2011. The holidays will be over and it will be time to make the new year bright!

To learn more go to www.theempowermentcoach.net/4-Foundations-of-Recovery.html .

See you soon with the next installment of Holiday Time Again – How to Cope and Thrive – part 2 of 4.

Best wishes for a joyous holiday season,

Coach Bev

Beverly A. Buncher, MA, CEC
Family Recovery Coach
www.theempowermentcoach.net
www.12stepfamily.com
see you In The Rooms! www.intherooms.com

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

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

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.

You think, in fact, that if you tell them what you think about their using or that its presence is not acceptable to you, then you are returning to old behaviors. In fact, you are acting codependently.

Well, my friend, think again.

While I’ve heard many newcomers to the family groups interpret the program in this way, I’m here to say that it’s just not true.
In fact, if anything, recovery is about becoming your most authentic self with everyone, including the addict or alcoholic in your life.

So, what does that mean?

Well, stand by for the next post of 12stepfamily.com. It’s going to be filled with practical ideas and steps for you to consider, if you are trying to wake your addict out of their stupor, but aren’t sure how to go about it.

You won’t want to miss it, especially if you are dealing with a using addict in your life!

Come back in a day or two and let’s talk!

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)

In this post, let’s look at what can be done to fill that hole positively, so it becomes unnecessary to do so with negative behaviors or substances.

In past posts, we have looked at working the steps and therapy. In this blog, let’s take a look at medication, recovery coaching and my personal favorite, True Purpose Coaching, which allows a client to find the contribution they personally are meant to make in the world.

In some cases, medication is necessary. To avoid or be unwilling to take medication on principle, can be a great mistake if this is what is needed to keep one from relapsing or switching addictions. It’s not about the substance, remember, these are just symptoms. If the steps and therapy can’t go deeply enough to help one work through one’s issues, then further help is needed, and that help may be medication combined with therapy or coaching.

Hiring a recovery coach can actually help tremendously. Recovery coaches can help an addict or co-addict get ready to get help they previously felt unready to get by starting where the addict or co-addict is. Using a strengths based model, the coach sees the client as someone who is healthy at their core and helps the client to build on their intrinsic strengths and successes in their recovery process. Family recovery coaching does the same thing for family members who often feel beaten down and hopeless as a result of trying for so long to help their addicts get well. By keeping the focus on the client’s strengths and successes, the coach helps the client increase the presence of positives in their life. Recovery coaches (see www.recoverycoaching.org ) are specially trained to apply coaching principles to the specialized issues that addicts and their families have been through. Their ability to understand both the coaching field and the specific challenges that addiction and recovery bring make them invaluable to many an addict and their family.

A specific method of coaching that specifically addresses the issue of addiction switching and approaching relapse in those who find themselves on the brink, as well as the need for those who are relatively successful in their recovery to grow to new heights of meaning and joy, is called True Purpose Coaching. I have been using this successfully with a variety of clients, including addicts, co-addicts and those not touched by addiction, and have found it to be truly transformative with all three groups.

True Purpose Coaching, developed by Tim Kelley and outlined in his book True Purpose:12 Strategies for Discovering the Difference You Are Meant to Make teaches clients a method of directly and regularly accessing a reliable two way communication with a Higher Power of their own choosing. (for more information or to order the book go to http://www.kickstartcart.com/app/?af=1043560 ). The method that clients learn provides a means to get reliable detailed information about one’s own life purpose and gives them the ability to gain the type of spiritual relationship the Big Book refers to in step 11 and to access it regularly and systematically. In other words, it allows clients to have constant, ‘conscious contact’ with the God of their understanding and to use that relationship to find out God’s will on a daily basis, without having to search for clues from the environment or wait for intuitive hunches.

My personal experience with finding my own purpose and helping my clients find theirs has been that it is completely transformative in that it opens a channel to inner understanding and purposeful living that greatly lessens the need to fill up with negative or self-destructive behaviors. Working with purpose clients has actually become my greatest joy as a coach since I see clients move from confusion to peace and a strong sense of direction as their purpose unfolds before their eyes and their ability to connect to their inner wisdom increases exponentially.

In fact, when life purpose enters the recovering person’s life, the need to switch addictions all but vanishes and opportunities for a richer, fuller life appear more and more frequently. This method works best with people who have time in recovery, have done work on themselves, and are looking for more to enhance or improve their lives. It is powerful and it works.

For more information on True Purpose and/or Recovery Coaching drop me a line through the Contact Us form above and let’s set up a complimentary session to explore the possibilities.

Until then,

All the best,

Coach Bev

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

http://www.kickstartcart.com/app/?af=1043560