Addiction has taken root in your loved one. Addiction manipulates your loved one’s thinking and distorts beliefs. Addiction thrives on chaos. Addiction plays by its own rules.
As addiction progresses, consequences have less influence. Addiction takes the family hostage.
In combination with the focus of keeping your loved one safe and alive, consider strengthening the structure and container around your loved one.
Family meetings shifts focus towards enabling health.
Family circles create a new structure in the family
Family circle meetings invite everyone into a structure that challenges the patterns addiction created and together enables the family to move towards health.
Realize that addiction plays by its own rules.
Establishing ground rules for family meetings challenges addiction’s rules and together enables the family to begin movement towards a healthy structure around any addiction patterns.
Family circles have an intention and communication guidelines
Family circle meetings have an intention to shift the structure of the family from orienting around addition, to the family structure becoming stronger than addiction.
Communication guidelines invites productive participation that aligns with the intention.
With a focused intention and guidelines that support the intention, a family can:
-
- Take an action towards enabling health and healing
- Increase awareness and build unified support
- Listen to how others have been impacted.
- Acknowledge addiction’s wreckage as well as unified potential for healing
- Listen to how others have been impacted
The family circle invites starting a process of healing together. The video is a specific example.
Each family will have different specific content. However, their basic intention and a productive method of communication that best supports them going forward together will be clear.
Lasting change is an incremental process. Expecting immediate change is not realistic.
Without clearly known basic intentions, a productive method of communication, and family circles old habitual defensive interpersonal family patterns are likely to continue enabling addiction These patterns are given power and minimize patterns of health.
Family circle meetings shift power from addiction to the family structure.
Family meetings invites all voices, and eventual unified strength
Addiction thrives on chaos, mixed messages, and convoluted one on one conversations. Addiction can manipulate meaning easier one on one than in a group.
Family member’s different impact from addiction will result in different voices and different perspectives. Don’t assume all voices will be unified right away.
Moving towards unified strength is a gradual process.
Family meetings that invite all voices challenge an environment of secrets and private one on one conversations. Invite all voices to be deeply heard.
Summary
Family meetings provide a focus of attention for families who intend to break old survival patterns that enabled addiction to thrive. Family meetings shift the focus on what the family can do vs. what they should not do.
Family circle meetings begin a practical and realistic step towards enabling health.
A family’s unified intention and agreed upon communication guidelines create a container for all voices to be heard, eventually increasing family strengths and protective factors that enable health and healing.
But people in our family would never agree to a family meeting
“No” may be an initial response from some. However, “no” can be a conversation starter vs. the end of a conversation.
Don’t let dissenting voices nix a potential avenue that initiates your family healing together. You can plant seeds of change. Start the process with those who are willing and keep the others informed with the progress.
Next Steps
If your loved one is in a life and death situation, focusing on family circle meetings would serve your family making good decisions together. But there may not be time. Getting your loved one safe and stable may be the sole priority at this time.
If your loved one is not in a life or death situation, take action now to initiate structured circle meetings in your family.
Reach out to me: email, phone (720-314-3543), or schedule a free 30 minute consultation.
I look forward to supporting your family’s journey!