66: Kevin Petersen discusses his new book, “Chronic Hope” and the importance of a 3 point plan
“Your kid’s addiction or your family members’ addiction is not your responsibility. How you react to it is your responsibility.” – Kevin Petersen
Addiction is a worldwide trend. It comes in many forms and in varying degrees. Thus, families need to be on guard at all times. However, it’s really hard to exercise withitness in the family. Sometimes, we are not even aware that our own children are addicted. Dr. Kevin Petersen shares some tools and knowledge to help families move away from addiction. The family unit is a cradle of love, support, wisdom and protection. It is where life’s joys and sorrows are shared. If the family is able to perform its function, then addiction has lost its place in the family circle. Nobody beats addiction alone. When families work together, there is guaranteed success.
Highlights:
02:30 Taking the Natural Evolution in the Addiction and Recovery Path
09:48 Setting Up Boundaries
14:51 Family Support is Essential
23:25 Reach out Early
31:06 Resources and Guidance for Families
37:18 Ask for Help
42:02 The Sooner, The Better
Resources:
Book
Chronic Hope: Parenting the Addicted Child by Kevin Petersen
Never lose hope! Join @TFRSolution and @KevPetersenPFC in their conversation about helping families turn their hope into a reality. #boundaries #support #love #accountability #familyunity #structure Share on X
Quotes:
10:54 “The families has to all be on board. There has to be a generalized agreement of: ‘This is what we want and this is where we want to go with it’.” – Kevin Petersen
11:50 “That’s where we have to start in getting everybody to a place where: ‘if we’re gonna do this, let’s get together and do it as a team and have a unified front’.” – Kevin Petersen
17:35 “Sunlight is the best disinfectant… Let’s get everything out here. And let’s sort through this together.” – Kevin Petersen
20:03 “Everybody makes mistakes. And that’s the nature of parenting.” -Kevin Petersen
20:30 “Your kid’s addiction or your family members’ addiction IS NOT your responsibility. How you react to it IS your responsibility.” – Kevin Petersen
30:49 “It’s really critical that you just be really clear with them…” -Kevin Petersen
38:42 “You cannot expect your family member who’s an addict to do something that you yourself are not willing to do.” -Kevin Petersen
40:26 “If nothing changes, nothing changes.” -Jeff Jones
42:25 “The sooner we can help, the better.” – Kevin Petersen
About Kevin
Kevin Petersen is a Licensed Marriage Family Therapist and a high-quality addiction therapist. Having been an addict himself, he specialized in working with families struggling with codependency and addiction. He is the author of the book Chronic Hope: Parenting the Addicted Child. Kevin has counseled hundreds of families and helped them find dynamic solutions to set their feet firmly on a healing path.
Got ideas? Perhaps a future podcast? Schedule time with Jeff here: https://meetme.so/jeffjones
Transcriptions:
Jeff Jones: So welcome everyone, this is Jeff Jones with the podcast Families Navigating Addiction & Recovery. And today I am here with a guest who is in my local area. I’m outside of Boulder and he’s in Denver. This is Kevin Petersen, and I have known Kevin Petersen for a number of years, a very high quality addiction therapist in Denver area. And he has written a book which we’re going to be talking about here today. And the name of his book is Chronic Hope. So welcome Kevin.
Kevin Petersen: Thanks Jeff. Thanks for having me on. I really appreciate it.
Jeff Jones: Yeah, yeah, yeah, you’re welcome. And so, if we could start with you just kind of sharing what you want people to know about who you are.
Kevin Petersen: Sure. I am a Licensed Marriage and Family Therapists in Colorado and this is a second career, I went back to graduate school in 2008, I had a career in sales for about 20 years. And then I was 43 years old and I was just at a space where I wasn’t feeling very fulfilled emotionally and spiritually with who I am, and who I was, and what was doing. So I talked to a couple of good friends of mine and they had both gone back to school, one became a nurse, one became therapists, they both said the same thing: “I think you’d be a great therapist.” So that’s what I ended up doing. And I ended up being, you know, going back to the Regis University here in Denver and I graduated in 2011 with Master of Arts in Marriage and Family Therapy. I worked for three and a half years in community mental health in Denver at the Arapahoe Douglas Mental Health Network, doing a lot of Child and Family Services and crisis work, and started my own private practice in April, 2014 and it took off right away. And now I specialize in working with families that struggle with codependency and addiction, and helping them create a plan for how they can handle what’s going on.
Jeff Jones: Yeah, yeah, yeah. Thanks. So anything you want to say about yourself?
Kevin Petersen: Myself?
Jeff Jones: Outside of the credentials.
Kevin Petersen: Yeah, I’m 55 years old. I’ve been in long term recovery from drugs and alcohol since 1991, I have been sober for 28 and a half years. I’m very happily married to my wife, Amy. We have two Boston Terriers, Bert and Blanche.
Jeff Jones: Yes. I’ve seen pictures (laughs).
Kevin Petersen: (laughs) Bert’s actually here with me, and he comes to work with me every day.
Jeff Jones: Ooh.
Kevin Petersen: My clients love him. I actually think my clients love him more than they like me, I’m okay with that, but yeah, you know, that’s outside of my work and my credentials.
Jeff Jones: Right.
Kevin Petersen: That’s who I am, that’s what I do and we split our time between Denver and Jacksonville, Florida.
Jeff Jones: Yeah, yeah, yeah. Then when you went to school and got your degree and all that kind of stuff, what encouraged you to go towards addiction and families specifically?
Kevin Petersen: Well, you know, it’s really funny you should ask that because when I was in graduate school, the program I went to didn’t have a Masters in Marriage and Family Therapy. And in my first year, I took a class on theories and the professor who taught the class said: “We’re going to review about 16 theories once a week, and one of these theories is going to hit you right between the eyes and that’s going to be you.” For me, it was family systems. Because I’ve been in recovery since 1991, it was just kind of a natural evolution to take the family systems approach and work that back into families that struggle with addiction and codependency, and because that was the family I came from. I grew up in a house of addiction.
Jeff Jones: Yeah.
Kevin Petersen: And then I became an addict and then I got sober, and then I became a mental health professional. So it sort of felt like I had come full circle and I really enjoy what I do, and I really enjoy working with the families that struggle with this because I feel like I’m in a unique position where I can help them.
Jeff Jones: Yeah, right. Wonderful. Yeah, so it sounds like it’s been a natural progression and evolution for you.
Kevin Petersen: Yeah, exactly. Exactly.
Jeff Jones: Yeah. All right, so you wrote this book. Should we just jump into that?
Kevin Petersen: Should, absolutely, we can. I wrote the book, Chronic Hope: Parenting the Addicted Child because like I said, when I opened up my office way back in April of 2014 and went to private practice, what immediately walked in my door were families that were struggling with kids, and I want to be clear when I say kids, I mean anyone from you know, 12, 14, 16, 20, 22, 26, 30, 40, 60. They were struggling with having a family member that was using, and drinking and using and really not being able to control or contain what was happening, and they just didn’t know how to go about dealing with it. And because a combination of things, because the combination of my family of origin, how they addressed my addiction, my education, et cetera, et cetera. I ended up developing like a three step or a three point plan of how to address this with somebody inside the family. It just evolved over the five and a half years of being a therapist and working in the addiction industry. And I also set up a couple of family programs for some treatment centers here in Denver. What I really realized is that the family, and this was an opportunity to sit with a family and really engage with them on what their pain, what their suffering was, what their trauma was.
Jeff Jones: Right.
Kevin Petersen: You know, the addict, the individual addict, whether it was a child, or a spouse, or a sibling, or whatever, they were in treatment. So they were getting all the help they needed, but the family sometimes was kind of at a loss for what they needed and how to take care of them. That’s how I evolved. That’s my thing.
Jeff Jones: Great, great. So with what you’re talking about, and I mean, I have similar experiences than can relate to what you’re talking about. I mean, one way I look at this, and you’ve alluded to this, but there’s this like a stage when, you know, like using behavior starts to become problematic and then a crisis will happen. And then a couple more maybe. And then eventually someone in the family is motivated to reach out for help. And so that’s kinda like a one stage, and then reaching out for help that can take an awful long time and can be in, you know, fits and starts, and then something happens, then the family voices their concern or their loved one goes to treatment, and then there’s like the treatment stage and then there’s after that. And so what stage should we jump into here first? Should we just kind of start at the beginning?
Kevin Petersen: Yeah, yeah. I mean, I think that’s really the best way to go about it, right? Is that, how it kind of all starts is that the family has, let’s say a 16, or 18, or 20 years old kid that’s blowing up and is struggling with drugs, struggling with alcohol, or you know, struggling at schools, struggling at work, and struggling at home with behavior and consistency. And generally by the time the family shows up at my doorstep, they’ve spoken to their individual therapists, they’ve spoken to a family therapist, they’ve spoken to their doctor, they’ve probably seen some psychiatrists, their minister, the Rabbi, their priest, school counselors, and nobody has really given them any clear cut direction of what to do, where to go, what to do, and how to go about it. And what I’ve really tried to do is help them understand that there are three areas that we’re gonna focus on. You know, the first one is drugs and alcohol, and my position with them is we’ll work set the boundary that you’re comfortable. What is the boundary that you want to create? Do you want to eliminate drugs and alcohol? Then that’s the boundary, and let’s be CLEAR that that’s exactly where we want to go with this. The family has to all be on board, right?
Jeff Jones: Yeah.
Kevin Petersen: You know, there has to be a generalized agreement of, this is what we want and this is where we want to go with it.
“The families has to all be on board. There has to be a generalized agreement of: ‘This is what we want and this is where we want to go with it’.” - Kevin Petersen Share on XJeff Jones: So a question about that, right there is, I know, I see that as the optimal getting family on the same page with information and a generalized agreement. So what do you do when it’s not the optimal like that, when people have different positions, or different ideas, or do you know what I mean?
Kevin Petersen: That’s a great question. I mean, that certainly, a lot of times what I get is the family coming together. Let’s say the mom feels this way and then the dad feels differently, and maybe there’s a sibling that’s like, yeah, you know, I don’t know if I agree with either of you. That’s generally where we have to start and get everybody to a place where, you know, if we’re going to do this, let’s get together and do it as a team and have a unified front.
Jeff Jones: Right.
Kevin Petersen: You know, then it just becomes traditional family therapy of talking about, okay, can we agree that drugs and alcohol are a problem? Yes? Okay, great. Now the next step is, what do you guys think we should do about it? And I let them drive the ship, you know, let them tell me what they think needs to happen. And then we start mapping out how to make that happen in very practical steps.
Jeff Jones: Yeah, yeah, yeah. I love that you acknowledge the importance of letting them drive the ship. I apologize if I sound like a naysayer or something like that, but it’s just that I know this stuff is challenging us all get out specifically with a teenager or something like that who’s smoking pot and got caught smoking pot in school, you know, but that smokes pot and not a lot, but he does, so he’s not really willing to talk about that or say that it’s a problem, maybe that’s in the shadows. Some people in the family may know about it, some people don’t. And you know, maybe it’s talked about like at this stage of trying to get the whole family on the same page, unified goals and boundaries. So talk to me a little bit about that. There’s one way that I think about it from the standpoint of a clinician, but then there’s another way I think about it from the standpoint of, you know, like the example that I use, the dad who’s smoking pot, like, from the mom’s perspective.
Kevin Petersen: No, I get it, trust me (laughs).
Jeff Jones: I know you get it (laughs), that’s why I asked these questions, you know?
Kevin Petersen: Well, any, I think the thing is, right? I mean, that’s why I love family therapy so much because everybody walks in with, junior is the problem and we’ve got to take care of junior. And so in the process of walking through this, all right, what do you guys want to do? What starts to happen, is all the barriers start coming forward like you’re talking about.
Jeff Jones: Yeah.
Kevin Petersen: Well, you know, how dare you to tell junior to stop drinking and smoking pot when you smoke pot every day. And then we start talking about that and saying, Hey, let’s talk about that. I mean, what does this mean? And if we’re going to bring recovery into this family system, what does that going to look like for the entire family? I’m not saying, because one member of the family decides to get sober or get into recovery that the entire family has to quit using, or quit drinking, or anything along those lines. But if you’re going to be a supportive family member, let’s define what that looks like. What does that mean?
Jeff Jones: Yeah.
Kevin Petersen: I get real practical with them too. I’m like, if you’re going to spend 30 to $50,000, I’m sending this person to treatment, does it really make a lot of sense to have them come home to a house where there’s pot lying around and people are getting high and getting drunk? Is that a good use of your resources? And I’ll take whatever –they’ll listen to.
Jeff Jones: Yeah.
Kevin Petersen: And also say, Hey, maybe it’s something that everybody needs to take a look at because what we also do, what I’ll do with them is I’ll say: “Let’s define addiction. Let’s talk about what that means.” And in my world, addiction is, once I start, I can’t stop, and I can’t control it, and I can’t control the amount, and I can’t control the frequency, and I can’t not stop. Again, I want everybody to get on the same page and say, this is what I call addiction. What do you guys call addiction? And have them give their thoughts, and their opinions, and let me just sort of cycle through it and get to a space where, through those conversations, they’re sort of information gathering, you know?
Jeff Jones: Yeah, yeah. So let me just throw out another question at this stage here, specifically from someone who may be listening to this who has some similar kind of situation. So if they come in, oftentimes they’re worried they’re going to be judged, they’re going to be labeled, they’re going to be shamed, there’s plenty of shame associated with addiction, for the individual with addiction, for the whole family. I’m just curious, like at this stage, are there things that you do to help them address that?
Kevin Petersen: Yeah.
Jeff Jones: Put that on the table like you did before.
Kevin Petersen: Yeah, absolutely. When we start talking about, I mean, whenever we say the word shame, the way families react to shame is they sweep things under the rug and they start keeping secrets, you know? And that’s one of the things I always try to emphasize with the families that I work with is, sunlight is the best disinfectant. So let’s put the cards on the table, let’s talk about everything, let’s put everything, let’s get everything out here and let’s sort through this, and let’s talk about what it means and what it looks like. And one of the big things is almost every parent I’ve ever worked with is like, what did I do wrong? Why is my kid an addict? This is my position and my position only and I don’t have any statistical data to back this up. I don’t know if it conflicts with the DSM or what, but my position is, there’s two kinds of people in the world, there’s ADDICTS and there’s NOT ADDICTS. There’s people that can safely use drugs, alcohol, video games and all that other stuff, and there’s people that can’t. And it’s been my experience that you’re one or the other. And once we can establish some basic understanding of what’s going on here, that the way this person was raised, the family that came from, the schools that they went to, those things did not determine whether or not they were an addict. I believe it to be a genetic background. And I’ve worked with people who had come from the poorest families ever, and I worked with people that come from the wealthiest families in the most privileged, educated families. And if they’re addicts or addicts, if they’re not, they’re not.
“Sunlight is the best disinfectant… Let's get everything out here. And let's sort through this together.” - Kevin Petersen Share on XJeff Jones: Yeah, yeah, yeah. Well, then there’s the two categories that you put out there. There’s people who can use substances safely and there’s people who can’t, and then I’m thinking to myself, Kevin, and then there’s people who spend their whole life thinking they’re in category one when they’re in category two.
Kevin Petersen: Exactly.
Jeff Jones: Or in category two and doing everything they can to, I just want to be a normal user.
Kevin Petersen: Yes.
Jeff Jones: Yeah, yeah, yeah. So, I really understand how challenging it is at this first stage to get the whole family to have a unified voice to work their loved one.
Kevin Petersen: Yes, exactly. And back to your question about the shame, but I try to do with them is to say: “Look, I’m sure you’ve made mistakes, everybody makes mistakes. That’s the nature of parenting, there are no perfect parents. There are no functional families, every family’s dysfunctional. But as far as your kid’s inability to safely use drugs and alcohol, that’s not on you. However, what is on you is how you react to it.”
“Everybody makes mistakes. And that's the nature of parenting.” -Kevin Petersen Share on XJeff Jones: Yeah, beautiful.
Kevin Petersen: That’s one of my big points of my book and my way of doing things is, your kid’s addiction, or your family members addiction is not your responsibility. How you react to it is your responsibility.
“Your kid’s addiction or your family members’ addiction IS NOT your responsibility. How you react to it IS your responsibility.” - Kevin Petersen Share on XJeff Jones: Yeah, I love what you’ve said there and I’m on that page. One of the things that I am quite aware of and I’ve seen over and over and I’m guessing that you have as well, but that is like every human organism has a nervous system and it’s different, and that reacting to it. I mean, some people have experience, and capacity, and resources to calm their own nervous system. And some people like just what I’ve said there probably is gobbledygook can, doesn’t mean that. You know what I mean?
Kevin Petersen: I do, I know exactly what you’re saying, I agree with you entirely. The other thing too is, I think that so many people, I mean, for the individual, right? For the addict or the questioning addict, the ability to remove some shame from them and say: “Hey, look, I know you’ve tried. I know you’re smart. I know you’re capable. I get it. It’s like having blue eyes, this is your reality. And the sooner you’re willing to accept that reality, the sooner we can actually start implementing change into your life.”
Jeff Jones: Right.
Kevin Petersen: But you know, there are people that want to like you said, spending their entire lives trying to prove that they’re not part of that group, that they’re part of the other group.
Jeff Jones: Yeah, yeah, yeah.
Kevin Petersen: I feel for them.
Jeff Jones: Yeah. We’re still on this first stage, you were talking about three areas and we’ve mentioned the one, and that’s the stage where people come into your office and you ask about drugs and alcohol, and boundaries, and what the family would look like and stuff like that. And it’s like, this is such an important stage because for some families, they can see a problem for many years and live with another person’s problem in the family for many years. And it’s not until, maybe a third hospital visit in the same month or something. But I’m just curious, is there anything that you could say to people who were listening to this to inspire them to reach out earlier as opposed to, well, let me just wait and maybe this’ll get better by itself and they told me they would take care of this problem.
Kevin Petersen: Yeah. Well, I mean, I think that’s one of the centerpieces, right? This idea that we tend to wait until it becomes an absolute life or death crisis situation as opposed to intervening earlier and saying, Hey, you know, it’s troubling us that you live this way of life and we’re afraid that it’s going to end up like this. And that’s kind of where I, again, that was one of the motivations for me, how the work that I do and the book that I wrote because I want people to understand that there’s a way to go about telling somebody with love in your heart, right? I’m really concerned about the way you live, and I’m concerned about that. And you can also set boundaries around that and say, you know, look, I love you, you’re my family member, you’re my father, my son, whatever, my wife, my child. But until this stuff gets handled, I just don’t think I can spend time with you because you’re too self destructive. And holding that ground, and holding that line and saying, and I also want to let you know, if you want help, I will move mountains for you to get help, but I’m not going to stand back and watch you slowly kill yourself.
Jeff Jones: Yeah, well, and I think too, like years ago before the opioid crisis was one of the things with addiction that I heard over and over that I saw as a myth and that is, you the family can’t really do anything and so their loved one hits bottom. But with opioids, with heroin, bottom is death and that’s not what I want to encourage families to wait for, that’s not what anybody wants here. I mean, my sense on our end, our end meaning addiction, professionals, therapists, care workers, doctors, public health workers, all that kind of thing, like inspiring people to get help sooner rather than later in my mind seems so important. And it’s one of the things when I saw your book and saw the title Chronic Hope that really caught my attention to, you know, kind to have multiple messages out in the culture to inspire a new way of looking at substance use, or problematic substance use, or you know, problems that happen more and more frequently or crisis that happens more and more frequently. And then at some point in that stage, addiction is like weaving it’s fingers in and tightening the grasp on one’s throat kind of thing is one way I think about it. So, I really appreciate you kind of hanging with me and asking all these specific questions at specifically at this stage. Is there anything else, this early stage that comes to mind before I ask? So Kevin, what’s number two?
Kevin Petersen: Well, so the three areas that I focus on and the first stage is ‘drugs and alcohol,’ school if they’re in school, or work if they’re working, and then behavior within the structure of their family. And my thing is set up boundaries with each one, and then a function of accountability with each one, and then a system of consequences and rewards within each one. And I outlined that really clearly in the book, but that’s sort of the first phase of, okay, once we’ve established this is what we need, here’s the initial plan. And I want to say I make it, I’m differentiate if someone’s doing opiates, heroin or that sort of, you know, drugs that can kill you instantly. I tell them: “We’re not going to waste a lot of time seeing whether or not this person can change their behavior. We’re going to kind of go straight to plan B.” You know, to stage number so, yeah, I’m with you entirely. I don’t think you have to stand back and watch somebody stick needles in their arms for six months and wait until they’re living under a bridge somewhere.
Jeff Jones: Yeah, yeah. And the other side of that is I think, I mean, I’ve seen parents who become so, in how they react to their loved one, they become kind of the prey for manipulation.
Kevin Petersen: Oh yeah.
Jeff Jones: And I’m sure you’ve seen this over and over again but just listening to you, I think of one client from years ago, it was a mom and she’s talking about her daughter who doesn’t have a driver’s license, wants her mom to drive her to a party, and the mom asks specifically: “Is there going to be heroin there?” And the daughter’s like: “Well, I don’t know, probably.” And the mom says: “Well, are you going to use?” And the daughter’s like: “Well, I don’t know, probably.” And the mom is like: “Well, I’m not going to drive you then.” And then the daughter whips out a razor blade, puts it to her arm and says: “Well, I’ll cut myself if you don’t.” I mean, manipulation just gets incredible and then the reaction, like family members reaction, their ability to react to some extreme crazy, you know, what is risk? Where’s danger? What do I do now? How do I help my loved one? It’s like there’s a ton of challenges here, so I really love what you were saying. When you start to hear their story, if the risk is high enough, if death is close enough, this first piece, we need to go fast, we need to go now.
Kevin Petersen: Oh yeah. And I mean, and trust me, I’ve had plenty of those families where the kid is like, you know, once the family starts setting boundaries, the kid’s like, I’m going to kill myself. I’m like, great, call 911, let them do their job, you know?
Jeff Jones: Yeah.
Kevin Petersen: Inevitably, they’ve probably been through that before and there can be some sort of resistance to that. And I’m like, well, you know, I get what you’re saying and I get your resistance. But I also think it’s critical that if your kid is going to play escalation games, I think it’s really critical that you just be really clear with them. Again, I love you, I’m with you, I get it, and you know what? We’re just, this isn’t how this is going to go.
“It's really critical that you just be really clear with them…” -Kevin Petersen Share on XJeff Jones: Yeah, yeah, yeah. So say more about this next step.
Kevin Petersen: Sure. Well, let’s say we do the boundaries, accountability, and the structure on drugs and alcohol and you work or school, and the behavior at home, and let’s say that the drugs and alcohol, or the park, or the kid just, you know, can’t stay sober, can’t stay clean. Then the next step is calling him some resources for treatment. Obviously if your kid’s under 18, you have legal authority to make them go which may require some help from an interventionist, an educational consultant, a case manager, and maybe a sober transportation group and that sort of thing. And ideally a therapist that’s familiar with all these resources that can help walk you through reputable, and in the book, I put a bunch of resources of the governing bodies and organizations nationally for those, for treatment programs, for interventionists, for educational consultants and saying: “Here are the resources of where to find these people.” And one of the things I really try to caution the families against is don’t Google Teenage Treatment Center, Colorado.
Jeff Jones: (laughs).
Kevin Petersen: (laughs) You’re gonna get, Oh, my God.
Jeff Jones: I mean, I laughed when you said that and I was going, Oh God, I shouldn’t have laughed. You know, from the standpoint when people are in crisis, that’s exactly what they do.
Kevin Petersen: Yeah, and I understand why. I mean, if I’m a family that’s, first of all, I mean, families aren’t going to, they’re not gonna walk down the street to the neighbors and say: “Hey, is your kid ever shot heroin?” And if so, what would you do? You know? They’re pretty tight lipped about the whole process. Like you said, they try to self educate, and what they end up getting is the people that are paying for ads or a lot of, there’s some very dangerous characters and the recovery and addiction world that have figured out how to present themselves as very safe and reputable people and they’re just NOT, you know, and finding, when we go to plan B, which is ‘intervention and treatment,’ what we’re talking about then is getting the proper resources, finding a good interventionist who will help you pick a treatment program. And I give a list of questions to ask about treatment programs, and I help them walk through the whole process. Again, at the risk of sounding a little unemotional, picking a treatment center is a lot like buying a car, it’s cost about the same, but it’s also, there’s a lot of different options and you have to walk in prepared to ask lots of questions and make sure that you get the one that fits your budget, your needs, the drug of choice, the gender. I mean, there’s so many things to take a look at rather than just, “Oh, well everybody says this is the best one.”
Jeff Jones: Yeah. I’m on The Network of Independent Interventionists. Actually, I’m the secretary there and there is so much to intervention. Lots of different ways people do that, you know, basically two different models. But yeah, so I really appreciate that your book has resources and guidance for family there. And then what is, you were talking about like a third?
Kevin Petersen: Sure, yeah. Plan C or door number three, whatever you want to call it, ‘if you’re old enough to remember, let’s make a deal.’
Jeff Jones: You’re dating yourself, Kevin.
Kevin Petersen: I know, it’s scary. If you’re over 18 and if you’re a person who is over, like my parents confronted me, I was 27 or 26 actually. And so you don’t have the leverage you have when somebody is 16, but what you can do is tell them: “Hey look, we’re going to totally respect your choices.” And if your choice is to continue to live this lifestyle, you know, and then you do an intervention and they refuse to go to treatment, then you really at that point have to say: “Okay, we’re going to respect your choice. But that also comes with the consequence of not being part of the family until you take better care of yourself.” And here’s the big objection that I get from that, and I know you’ve heard this before, Jeff: “Well, then they’re just going to kill themselves.” And my response is: “They’re already killing themselves.”
Jeff Jones: Yeah.
Kevin Petersen: And you’re just FUNDING IT, or you’re ALLOWING IT by turning a blind eye to it, or acting like it’s not happening. So why not take a stand for this person and tell them, “I love you and I don’t want to see you die. And I think this has to stop. And until it stops, I can’t be around you cause I can’t watch you kill yourself.” But you say it with love, and compassion, and empathy, and let me help you find help.
Jeff Jones: Yeah. So Kevin, I have another question here and it’s like, it goes back to the title of your book. Can you tell, I like the title of your book (laughs).
Kevin Petersen: Yes, yes. I have to become clean, my friend Josh Miller is the one that came up with the title.
Jeff Jones: You know, when I was reading the first chapter, I saw that.
Kevin Petersen: Good.
Jeff Jones: And actually, I did an interview here with Josh some time ago. So my question is, how can parents who are listening to this, how can they manifest or generate hope in the midst of crisis?
Kevin Petersen: Great question. And the answer, well, I mean, the automatic answer I’m going to say is–
Jeff Jones: Kevin, I want the silver bullet answer (laughs).
Kevin Petersen: The magic pills (laughs)?
Jeff Jones: (laughs).
Kevin Petersen: Well, the first thing I would tell them is to read my book and then ask for help. You know, it’s so much like the addict, right? The addict lives alone in their addiction and they feel like there’s nobody else out there that can help them, and nobody understands, etcetera, etcetera. It’s the same thing with the family. The family feels like there’s so much shame, and so much embarrassment, and humiliation attached to having someone that has this problem and not knowing what to do, you know? And so, that’s really a lot of why I read, I wrote this is like, Hey look, here’s a plan of action and feel free to call me and we can work together or I’ll help you find someone to work with and let’s get this process started.
Jeff Jones: Yeah, yeah, yeah, beautiful. There’s so many different points here that I could go into and continue this conversation with you and I’m aware of our time so I want to ask you, are there things that you wanted, like messages that you wanted to share or things that you wanted to put out there that you haven’t touched on yet?
Kevin Petersen: You know, the only thing I would tell you is that, a lot of times in the system, the family, the belief of the family, once we get our family members to treatment, the job is done. Everything’s co-share that point. And the response I give them is: “You cannot expect your family member who’s an addict to do something that you yourself are not willing to do.” And if we’re going to put a member of the family into treatment for their addiction and get them help, the entire family needs to take a long, hard look at their family system and their family behavior because I’m willing to bet that that one person isn’t the only person in the family that needs help. And it may not be with addiction, it may be with codependency. There may be some pretty strong behavior patterns that need to be addressed.
“You cannot expect your family member who's an addict to do something that you yourself are not willing to do.” -Kevin Petersen Share on XJeff Jones: Or it may be with prescription pills, or it may be with any number of things that someone can do compulsively over and over again and only have one strategy to feel the way that their body really wants to feel. You know, Kevin are, I really love when I asked you this open ended question about, is there anything else that you went straight to what I have seen as a major problem over and over again and that is this myopic, narrow focus on one person who has the biggest problem, you know? I love the fact that you wrote this book, I haven’t read the whole thing yet, I love what you’re doing. And the one thing that I’ve said to myself and occasionally out loud before, but that is, if nothing changes, nothing changes. If nothing in the family change then that environment that allow, or that environment that the addiction spawned in, if someone comes back into that environment, it’s the same behavior, the same relationships, the same way people interact, the same kind of belief systems. And so I really appreciate the message here, ‘the family needs to change to.’ How they change is, you know, families are different, they have different ways of being a family, and they have different goals and visions. And I liked that your book has, kind of what I’m hearing a prescription, or you know, this three point plan kind of thing.
“If nothing changes, nothing changes.” -Jeff Jones Share on XKevin Petersen: Exactly.
Jeff Jones: I really want to encourage people who are listening to this to check out Kevin Petersen’s book, Chronic Hope. I went to Amazon and I typed Chronic Hope and I found this, you can read the first little bit there. Thank you very much for the time and energy that you put this out in the world because I don’t think we have enough of those kinds of messages and I really appreciate it.
Kevin Petersen: Yay. Thank you for saying that. I really appreciate you saying that, and I appreciate you giving me some time and allowing me to get the message out. And you know, this has been a big thing for me and I really just, my goal is I want to help people and at the end of the day, I hate watching families struggle with this stuff and I hate watching people die. So the sooner we can help the better.
“The sooner we can help, the better.” - Kevin Petersen Share on XJeff Jones: Yeah. Wow, absolutely. So if you could say I put out the name of your book and Amazon, if people want to connect directly with you, how do you want them to do that?
Kevin Petersen: They can go to my website, which is petersenfamilycounseling.com and Petersen is S-E-N. And they can email me, they can text me, they can call me, All that information is there, you know, I’m happy to communicate with anybody and we all have a Facebook page.
Jeff Jones: So your last name, can you spell your website because I’ve spelled your last name wrong before probably for over a year.
Kevin Petersen: Everybody does. It’s Petersen, it’s P-E-T-E-R-S-E-N-F-A-M-I-L-Y-C-O-U-N-S-E-L-I-N-G.C-O-M.
Jeff Jones: Great. Well thank you so much Kevin.
Kevin Petersen: Oh, you’re very welcome and thank you Jeff, I appreciate it.