63: If the Solution to Addiction in Your Family is Intervention, What Type is Best for Your Situation?
“I really have a lot of faith in the power of family coming together.” –Jeff Jones
We’re in for another special treat! In this episode, Rex West interviews our very own, Jeff Jones. Jeff shares a bit of his background and how he became “the Jeff Jones” that we know today. His story pictures how families deal with their own crisis and the role each one takes on which can potentially create a larger dilemma for their family. Jeff’s experiences helped him see the patterns around addiction and how this creates a massive impact around the family’s well-being as a whole. As a therapist, Jeff sheds light on the subtle aspects of addiction and which type of intervention is best for a specific family situation.
Jeff believes in the power of families. Of course, family crisis is inevitable and it comes in many faces and intensity. But a family is specifically built so that no one will have to face these problems alone. As a coach, Jeff helps families see their situation in a new lens, one that magnifies hope and gives a clear picture of how resilient they can be.
Highlights:
03:20 The Inside Story of Jeff Jones
13:32 Why Families Do Not Understand Their Own Story
21:37 How the Past Haunt the Present
28:16 A Solid Decision to Change and Help Make a Change
31:23 The Role of Roles
40:03 The Neuroscience of Addiction
43:52 What Type of Intervention is Best for Your Situation?
52:01 The Family’s Recovery Message
54:06 Unique Intervention with Jeff
There is uniqueness in everything, even in intervention. If you’re looking into the best type of intervention for your family, today’s podcast will surely interest you. Listen in to this special episode as Rex West interviews our very own,… Share on X
Quotes:
13:34 “One of the unfortunate things that I saw was that families don’t really get the attention that they need. A lot of times they don’t want support and attention because they’re thinking is they don’t have any problems.” –Jeff Jones
15:27 “Even with the best treatment centers out there with a family component, it is hard to make change. It is hard for all of us to make change.” –Jeff Jones
24:43 “As individuals, we have different capacity to be resilient.” –Jeff Jones
33:24 “What I see that has been so powerful with this is for people to…look at their family situation through a new lens, and perhaps get some ideas and think about it think differently. And when they start thinking about it differently, then there’s openness, then there’s possibilities for them, then information that’s out there can easily come in.” –Jeff Jones
42:46 “When people learn to be aware of what’s happening in their own body and bring their own nervous system down, their thinking can expand, there’s some things they can do well, themselves.” –Jeff Jones
45:37 “I really have a lot of faith in the power of family coming together.” –Jeff Jones
51:52 “Ideally, the family has what I call them recovering message by them.” -Jeff Jones
57:56 “It’s kind of an incremental progression of how intervention has looked… where intervention can go.” Jeff Jones
01:02:19 “So like I am a big proponent of a compliment to the solution to addiction in our country, is to expand how we look at it, and bring in the voice of family members as being part of the solution.” Jeff Jones
About Jeff Jones
Jeff Jones grew up in a family with addiction and later on had addiction issues himself. Before becoming a therapist, it was all confusion and struggle as Jeff couldn’t put a name to what’s been bothering him. Later on, he had addiction issues himself. When he felt he was not getting the answers he needed, he peered into his own family’s history and finally identified patterns that sparked the change he so longed for. Today, Jeff uses these understanding combined with professional and well-founded strategies to help families navigate addiction and recovery.
About Rex West
Rex West was born and raised in Colorado. As a former teacher, he saw how family systems greatly affect an individual’s growth and development. Thus, he established his work as a psychotherapist along this avenue to help his clients find stability and solutions to their family crisis. Rex founded Ground Counselling, LCC in line with this vision. Today, he is geared and motivated to help individuals, couples and families, live the life of their dreams.
Got ideas? Perhaps a future podcast? Schedule time with Jeff here: https://meetme.so/jeffjones
Transcriptions:
Jeff Jones: Welcome everyone, this is Jeff Jones with the podcast Families Navigating Addiction & Recovery. And today I am here with my friend and fellow therapist, Rex West, and I interviewed him a while ago, actually, his podcast came out last Wednesday, and we’re going to do something a little bit different. And so I’ve asked Rex if he would interview me about what I’m doing and specifically about intervention. So welcome Rex, and now–
Rex West: You’re welcome, Jeff.
Jeff Jones: Thank you. I really appreciate you’re doing this.
Rex West: Oh, it’s fun. I’m happy to do it. I enjoyed it when you interviewed me, so yeah, I felt like a natural step.
Jeff Jones: Good. Thank you.
Rex West: Yeah.
Jeff Jones: Thanks.
Rex West: It’s like a reciprocal exchange, so how things should work, right?
Jeff Jones: Yeah.
Rex West: Well I’m glad we’re doing this today and I’ll say for me in being interviewed by you, I got more and more curious even though I know you fairly well and I know your stuff and what you do on your website, I was like, I want to hear more about who Jeff is and where Jeff came, how we came to this place of doing recovery work.
Jeff Jones: Yeah.
Rex West: And why it’s important to him, why he’s passionate about it. So should I just thought it’d be really interesting for your listeners, your clients, people who are, perspective people.
Jeff Jones: Yeah, right.
Rex West: Or just other people in the field who can learn from you to know more about knowing you, but why in the world they should listen to you.
Jeff Jones: Well thanks. I appreciate the question. So the short answer is I grew up in a family with addiction when I was a child and the person that has the addiction was my mother’s father, my grandfather, and he showered more love and attention upon me than anyone in my whole life–
Rex West: More than your actual parents.
Jeff Jones: –more than my parents. And there was a very big difference from the feeling that I had in my family of origin. And then when my mom and dad took my sister and I get to Kentucky Lake once a year for a couple of weeks.
Rex West: Where is Kentucky Lake?
Jeff Jones: Kentucky Lake is, like, mid Kentucky.
Rex West: Oh, it’s actually in Kentucky.
Jeff Jones: Yeah, out in the middle. It’s–
Rex West: In the Hills.
Jeff Jones: Yeah, it’s about an hour from Bowling Green, that’s about all I remember. But in Kentucky, my role in the family, my status in the family, my self esteem about myself was elevated because my grandfather saw me as, you know, this wonderful child and I, in some ways I could do no wrong in his eyes. I remember being out in his front yard shooting arrows into a target and they’d come out and go: “Yeah, good shot Jeff.” And I mean, all of this stuff, I also noticed when we went to Kentucky that my mom was different, that my sister was different.
Rex West: What happened?
Jeff Jones: That, like my mom was kind of off to the side in the corner. My dad was nurturing her. My dad never needed to nurture her. My mom was quiet, she was mousy. I would never use those words to describe my mom and my sister. My three female cousins were very aware that they were not getting that attention. I thought that attention was about me, it felt so freaking good. I think every child should get that kind of attention, you know? And I thought it was about me, but it was about my gender. I was a male.
Rex West: Right.
Jeff Jones: And so my grandfather, you know, elevated my status, and you know, not so with my sister and my three female cousins, I was the only male. So it was confusing to me. It felt good and I felt kind of, you know, what’s going on here? So this is like, I was a little ashamed that I was getting all this attention. Yeah. We at least just uncomfortable.
Rex West: Okay.
Jeff Jones: As a child–
Rex West: And I think that you loved it?
Jeff Jones: Oh, I incredibly loved it, you know? What I’m describing is the psychobabble term, intergenerational transmission, the carrier, just grief and pain–
Rex West: I would call that confusion.
Jeff Jones: It was confusion, as a child it was confusion–
Rex West: It feels good and I feel like I should be feeling this.
Jeff Jones: Right.
Rex West: Yeah.
Jeff Jones: So it was never talked about in the family. There was some trauma between my grandfather and my mother as she never talked about it–
Rex West: For myself, and listeners, that’s your mom’s dad.
Jeff Jones: Correct.
Rex West: And maternal grandfather.
Jeff Jones: Yeah.
Rex West: Okay.
Jeff Jones: Yeah. So there was some trauma there. I heard little pieces of things.
Rex West: Where did you hear those pieces?
Jeff Jones: My mom had to move out of the house when she was in high school because there was so much chaos. She went to live with some neighbors, some people that were in the church that she was in.
Rex West: Can we just clarify since we are talking about addictions, right? What was your grandfather’s particular form of addiction?
Jeff Jones: Alcohol.
Rex West: Okay.
Jeff Jones: It was straight up alcohol.
Rex West: Beer, wine?
Jeff Jones: It was probably all of the above.
Rex West: Or good old Kentucky Bourbon?
Jeff Jones: I mean hard liquor for sure, but all day long, you know, just have some beers.
Rex West: So you are saying pretty much always.
Jeff Jones: Yeah. And there’s just like lots of stories there that I could talk about this for a while, but really why I’m doing what I’m doing is that, as I grew up, I knew very little about this, what was actually happening, what was going on. Even when I was 21, I went over to Ireland and saw my step grandmother who was my grandfather’s second wife and they were, you know, had a good alcoholic marriage kind of thing. They both drank together and love it, and they’re on that bandwagon.
Rex West: Okay.
Jeff Jones: And so, when I was 21, my grandfather died when I was 11 but when I was 21, I went to see my step grandmother, and you know, the first evening she had a glass of straight whiskey, a water glass of straight whiskey. I’m like, Whoa.
Rex West: And so two and two together at that point?
Jeff Jones: Well, that was a big question mark, but like, in my family of origin with my parents, they would have some drinks now and then with some friends that came over but nothing like this. So it was like way out of context. I went back, asked my mom what’s going on, and she wouldn’t, I mean, essentially every question I had, every answer was the same. It was essentially: “Jeff, the only thing you really need to understand is that your grandfather was an alcoholic.” And that was not real fulfilling when I would–
Rex West: She was trying to contain the fire.
Jeff Jones: She was trying to protect her kids–
Rex West: By containing the reality.
Jeff Jones: Yeah.
Rex West: Her role, how it plays out in her life, and how it affects you.
Jeff Jones: Well. And she was like not being honest with herself about her own impact. And so her containing that, encouraged me to contain that because I didn’t really know. But when I became a therapist, I got real curious about my own family and what I want to do as a therapist, you know? So I looked at my own family and I saw these patterns, and I had been, you know, working with clients in somehow families with an addictive loved one just happened to show up, and patterns that I was seeing reminded me of patterns that I grew up with. And I really realized how, even though I didn’t have a lot of terrible, horrific things happen to me and I’ve had my own drug and alcohol stuff, but I was never in a treatment center. I’m not a, you know, strong AA. I bend to AA a handful of times and a lot of them have been taking clients to an AA meeting, you know. So I didn’t really have that background, but I saw these patterns and how I had played them out, and kind of limiting beliefs that I had about what I could do in the world.
Rex West: Right.
Jeff Jones: And I was like, Oh my God, you know, if I have a degree of limiting beliefs that I’m seeing and understanding families that really, that are, have so much more kind of in the fire, you know, chaos, trauma, activity to navigate, how do they deal with this? And like the way our system is set up, what I have seen is there’s a large focus on that one person addiction is a brain disease, and just get that brain fixed up–
Rex West: And then they’re good to go.
Jeff Jones: Yeah.
Rex West: And we’re good to go then because we’ll take care of them.
Jeff Jones: Well that’s a problematic pattern that I see that has more to do with culture, that has more to do with the history of the country with addiction, and how those habitual patterns kind of manifest. And then people in the culture, they learn what they learned from the culture. What else do we do? You know?
Rex West: I’m curious to see what you think, but from my perspective, I work with systems dynamics that it is the brother culture, but really what we’re talking about is the culture of the family, and which is influenced by the brother culture, but our experiences as individuals is within this very specific and very potent powerful context.
Jeff Jones: Yes.
Rex West: Which is the family system.
Jeff Jones: Absolutely. Absolutely. I’m on the same page and what I’ve done is expanded from just the family to an understanding of, and it’s kind of like the family map, or genogram, go back two or three generations, have a visual kind of map of what the family’s like, and then you go back two or three generations, and what were the challenges and struggles that the people in a particular family had two or three generations ago, or more of, like, whatever their stories are. Their stories kind of really influence the stories that they tell themselves about addiction in the family.
Rex West: But not just stories, but also how we actually experienced the world, and engaged with the world based on those patterns, right?
Jeff Jones: Absolutely. So, you know, one of the unfortunate things that I saw was that families don’t really get the attention that they need. And a lot of times they don’t want support and attention because their thinking is they don’t have any problems. It’s just this person, their son or daughter, and they have this, you know, problematic behaviors. And then they learn it’s a brain disease, and yeah, the brain is impaired. But it’s like, because the definition of the majority of national organizations are so narrow, it reinforces families not really understanding their own story about addiction in their family and where that came from. And once they start to see larger patterns and identify some of that stuff and really see that those patterns are impersonal, they’re not personal to them. I say it’s easy for me to say that, but they’re caught up in this personal dynamic, they are a person.
“One of the unfortunate things that I saw was that families don't really get the attention that they need. A lot of times they don't want support and attention because they're thinking is they don't have any problems.” –Jeff Jones Share on XRex West: It’s both at the same path.
Jeff Jones: Both hands is so important through so much of this process. And then when we get to intervention, like families think of it the same way.
Rex West: Oh, of course.
Jeff Jones: To get an intervention that is going to, you know, force that person to go to treatment.
Rex West: Which really the, at least from my perspective, the connotation there, the unspoken understanding is it will fix them, it will fix their problem.
Jeff Jones: Yes, yeah. And you know, there’s plenty of good treatment centers out there that have a family component, and even the best of treatment centers out there with a family component, it is hard to make change. It is hard for all of us to make change. Even things that I want to change in my life, and you know, that I’m really, really inspired and that dah dah, dah dah. It’s a challenge. And so, you know, people in the family changing their behaviors, changing how they interact, what they say, you know, changing kind of what they do. Some of the structure or traditions, you know, whether it’s weekly, or daily, or whatever kind of thing that families can do, they have the power to make change. And so what I’m really trying to do with this whole approach of, you know, family coaching that is a complement and support any individual treatment, individual therapy is this both hand kind of approach to work can be individual, and there’s a whole systemic kind of understanding.
“Even with the best treatment centers out there with a family component, it is hard to make change. It is hard for all of us to make change.” –Jeff Jones Share on XRex West: Maybe you can extricate the two that they have to be working on.
Jeff Jones: Yeah, absolutely. And so there’s families that can afford individual therapy, and family therapy and all that,,and that’s great and a huge proponent of that. And I do that as do you, you know, and not every family feels that they need therapy. Not every family wants to go, or even if they go, maybe the mom and dad will go, but other siblings won’t, or other siblings live in different parts of the country, or the two or three generations kind of thing. Like if there’s grandparents who are alive, and our love and care about that individual, then they can be a part of this process regardless of where they live kind of thing. And the coaching is a compliment, the therapy gets compliment to treatment. You know, and it’s a, it extends the treatment centers program. Even the best of programs where they have family program because even like a week long family program, they’re expected to go home, and then they make all the change, and they’re good to go.
Rex West: Yeah.
Jeff Jones: So you know, this is an extension of, it can be on the front end of treatment, and the front end of intervention, and it can be after treatment, and once using behaviors have stopped but the patterns and the family continue.
Rex West: Right.
Jeff Jones: That makes sense?
Rex West: Yeah. Yeah. So I’m curious about, there’s a lot in there, and I’m curious about several things, and especially thinking about people who have these kinds of issues in their family system who are looking for effective ways to work with them and to actually make change. So one thing that came up for me earlier that you said a while ago was, I’m curious how you feel about how you view the working with a family’s perspective on the actual nature, severity intensity of what’s going on in their system, these are the other people. Because what I heard you say with your own family system was, it wasn’t that bad. And when I hear that, to me, that’s part of the problem because it gets to that, what I would call the relative nature of suffering that it is, or was that bad because it was you experiencing it, it was affecting you.
Jeff Jones: And thank you for saying that, you know, because I really believe that is a normal reaction, it’s not that bad.
Rex West: It could be worse, right?
Jeff Jones: And well it could be worse, and I could have done the exact same thing my grandfather did, and I could have, you know, been in such a place where my parents needed to put me into a treatment center, or having an intervention from me, or something like that. So, and by all right, I had nothing to complain about, you know, from the standpoint–
Rex West: Just that statement really, that fascinates me because–
Jeff Jones: Because it’s comparative judgment, you know, that I’m looking at–
Rex West: Which is the nature of the human brain and mind, and how they have to function to survive. And yet because of how could we become that as human beings, it is about not actually really being accurate with our own experiences.
Jeff Jones: Absolutely.
Rex West: And belittling it, justifying it. There’s a lot of ways you could look at it in ways that are not helpful. Because whatever happened with your grandfather’s alcoholism and the related consequences and effects it has on your mom and your dad in your family system are, in my opinion, just as valid and just as damaging as they are in a system that you and I would look at and go, Oh my God, at least it wasn’t bad.
Jeff Jones: And I didn’t really start to understand the impact to me until I became a therapist.
Rex West: So really what you’re saying is that everyone should become therapists so they can understand.
Jeff Jones: No, that’s not really realistic.
Rex West: It’s not.
Jeff Jones: It’s like the ideal I think is for families to be able to normalize and understand, you know, that our history, things that happen in the history of our country, things that happened in the history of our ancestors and how they reacted to things that happened in our country. Like the immigration story is huge in every family. The depression, the economic depression that families lived through, every disruption that happens in a family with outside of the normal family life cycle, which could be like, when a child dies before their parent, or there’s some major accident that doesn’t really happen in old age because old ages is when we think, well that’s normal, that should happen.
Rex West: But it’s more the exception.
Jeff Jones: It’s how we think about it, and how we think about it really influences heavily how we think about our situation with addiction. And yeah, your point is well taken. Like when we look at this ourselves, we’re going to have blind spots. Of course, we’re gonna have blind spots, all of us, myself included, just as you pointed out, you know, this is absolutely normal. But the problem is that, I mean, there’s a huge amount of stigma. There’s a huge amount of shame. There’s a huge amount of misunderstanding of, you know, the reason why there’s addiction in their family is because of me or my parents. And that means, there’s this interpretation and it’s negative, and the body can tract, and that keeps us quiet. Just it did for my mother, you know, her very best strategy was to protect her children from those stories.
Rex West: Like, do we contract and become, some people will become quiet. Some people go the other way.
Jeff Jones: Absolutely.
Rex West: But a contracted system is a reactive system, and that normally exacerbates situations with tends to perpetuate patterns, reactive patterns as well that are already within the system.
Jeff Jones: Right. Well, and it’s like, so there’s going to be polarities. Addiction doesn’t affect every person in the same way as, you know, it doesn’t affect every family in the same way. Families don’t take on from the culture this the same kind of impact. They have different, as a system, they have different capacity to be resilient as individuals. We have different capacity to be resilient, you know? And if we are just looking at just one individual, which for yourself that’s important, we have to do that. But that by itself makes it much more challenging to actually get good traction. And so, what I’m trying to do here is to create an understanding that these patterns come from the culture, our ability to cope with them, or be resilient. It’s what we have, whatever we have, we have, and it’s not something where we should feel guilty about, or shame about. And their shame in the culture, there’s stigma, we’re going to feel that. So I mean, with what I have done and having a, you know, online community where people can connect confidentially and all that kind of stuff. I see a huge potential for that down the road. But I’m not sure other people really see that, or understand that. And so, I’ve had to pull back and back off from that where I see this can go, this can go meaning families supporting families, and you know, people being able to reach out early, get information, and support, and other like minded people early. And so now where I’m at with this is the same kind of understanding that I’ve been talking about, but more, one family at a time, and with intervention, I wanted to focus on intervention and I’m realizing we’re about halfway through this or more, or something.
“As individuals, we have different capacity to be resilient.” –Jeff Jones Share on XRex West: I’m curious, I think would be helpful for people who, listening to this to back up a bit, and give people a sense of how you got from being a product of this family system with this grandfather who adored you and showered you of attention of grace, and then the conflict that you experienced, that confusion you experienced because it didn’t feel right, it felt right, but it didn’t feel right to you as a child. How you went from there, you mentioned some elements of your own engagement with substances and alcohol, how it went from there to where you started to realize, Oh, this is what I want to do, and this is the difference I want to make in the world as a bridge to what you’re doing now. So I think we need to fill in that gap for people who are listening. Does that make sense?
Jeff Jones: Yeah, and I think, I mean, in my mind, I’ve already alluded to that and I can fill in whatever pieces aren’t clear, but essentially becoming a therapist and understanding, and seeing more of what happened in other people’s families, and being reminded of patterns that happened in my own family, you know, got me really curious. And so I–
Rex West: And why did you make the decision to actually have that be what you do in the world?
Jeff Jones: Whoa. As a therapist, like once I’m doing therapy with an individual, or a family, as you know, there’s paperwork that the state’s paperwork that essentially says, you know, there’s confidentiality, there’s like, I can’t talk to anybody else. And so what I saw as a therapist is that I didn’t have a lot of resources for people, whether it was an individual or a family. Hey, have you been to AA? Hey, have you been to an A and not made it, you know, as a therapist I could talk about the impact, what was happening in the body, the nervous system regulating that, you know, practicing different exercises, and then they go back into, you know, the system that’s pretty chaotic to practice. And in therapy can go back and on and on for quite a ways.
Rex West: Sure.
Jeff Jones: And as a therapist, I didn’t have the kind of resources that I saw were needed, you know, and it wasn’t like everyone that I saw, family members had a problem.
Rex West: Right.
Jeff Jones: From their perspective, and they didn’t do anything to cause the addiction kind of flaring up. They’re just doing what they’re doing, they’re fitting into the system however they fit in. And then something happens in the family with addiction, and their role, that pattern gets amplified, or they change it from, like, they modify it.
Rex West: Yeah. Cause most people aren’t aware of what that role is, right?
Jeff Jones: Right, right. So for myself, I think, because I’m a visual learner, I think it has been really helpful to have a visual diagram to talk about your general roles.
Rex West: Can you, and I get, we don’t have a visual of that right here, right now, but can you explain?
Jeff Jones: Sure, sure. So yeah. So get a piece of paper, blank piece of paper and a pen, and put a circle in the middle of that piece of paper, a circle about the size of a fist and then at 1:00 o’clock, 3:00 o’clock, and 5:00 o’clock, put a line off of that with a small circle about the size of a quarter, or a dime, or something like that. And then at 7:00 o’clock, put a circle that snuggled up to that big circle about the size of a quarter, and then at about 10 o’clock put another circle off to the side about the size of a dime or a quarter.
Rex West: Are you used to a teacher?
Jeff Jones: No, I didn’t. So I have spent years with this visual diagram and using it in the context of intervention, using it in the context of a first call on the telephone, using it like in a session with one person, or a session with their whole family. The thing is that this diagram can be used as a very quick down and dirty assessment tool for a family members to have an idea like what’s happening with patterns, with roles, with their own.
Rex West: So I have the visual in my mind when you’re using that tool that you then share with family members. What is it that you’re filling out?
Jeff Jones: So what I talk about, and this, you know there’s, this comes from therapy theory, Bowen family therapy, which I know you’re aware of, and your genius that sits here to kind of put them together. But that is any time in a family when there’s a problem or chaos, there’s going to be a role that comes out to try to deal with that. And then if it’s fixed, then it’s fixed good. But if it isn’t, then other roles come out, and the more that problem goes along and gets bigger, the more roles come out. And the more people in the family, they are operating in a way to try to keep the family together. They’re operating in a way to try to solve the problem. They’re operating in a way to kind of help the person feel okay, or minimize the problem, or avoid the problem, you know? And so, there’s different strategies here that they’re not aware of, they don’t see, they’re invisible, and they’re doing their very best.
Rex West: Right.
Jeff Jones: So you know what I see that has been so powerful with this is for people to, if they like a visual understanding is helpful, that they can see this and start to look at their family situation through a new lens and perhaps get some ideas and think about it differently. And when they start thinking about it differently, then there’s openness, then there’s a possibility, then information that’s out there can easily come in.
“What I see that has been so powerful with this is for people to…look at their family situation through a new lens, and perhaps get some ideas and think about it think differently. And when they start thinking about it differently, then there's… Share on XRex West: Right. So the elements of the chart, like the big circle.
Jeff Jones: Right. So you want me to explain the whole dynamics that will be helpful for piano stand? Because it, to me it’s, it’s a visual representation of how sure conceptualize work with people. So I call it the spotlight diagram. The big circle in the middle is the spotlight. It’s the individual that has the biggest problem. Everyone in the family is pretty much greed. They have the biggest problem. So the identified patient, the identified patient. Exactly. And then that line at one o’clock over there, the individual in that role, and I want to make it real clear roles or roles that are not people. And so I’m going to describe five different roles around this person in the middle, the spotlight.
Rex West: But so the satellite circles are the roles.
Jeff Jones: Yeah. Well the center circle is a role as well. But there doesn’t need to be six people in the family. Like one person can go through a lot of those roles and they can change bam, bam, bam, bam, bam.
Rex West: Depending on the situation.
Jeff Jones: Yeah. And depending on what they’re thinking, and how they’re interpreting things. But so real quickly I’ll go through how I talk about each one of those roles. And so at 1:00 o’clock, is the individual in that role is doing something, some similar behavior, if the person in the middle has a problem with alcohol, the person in the role at 1:00 o’clock, they may be drinking alcohol as well, they may be drinking alcohol together, but when the person at 1:00 o’clock when they drink alcohol, they don’t have the same kind of problematic outcomes as the person in the center circle.
Rex West: And there a clear Frank question. There could be a different form of addictive behavior?
Jeff Jones: Absolutely. Absolutely. You know, it could be work, it could be the classic thing that, you know, what they call co addiction. It could be like the family members that addiction is trying to help, and fix, and control, and keep them safe, and all them. So similar behavior but then drop down to 3:00 o’clock, and the person in that role that there’s still a line there, you know, but when I draw this, I put like hash marks through that line because they want to stay connected. But I don’t want to talk about the problem. They don’t want to talk about the alcohol. So they avoid talking about the problem and they like small talk, whatever connection, talk about something else or someone else.
Rex West: Avoidance.
Jeff Jones: Yeah, exactly. And then drop down to 5:00 o’clock, and the person in that role is 180 degrees. They want to talk about the problem. And the way they do it is very sharp, is very direct.
Rex West: In your face.
Jeff Jones: It can go back and forth. It’s very blaming and shaming. Volume of voices go up, heart rates go up. It can be an argument, you know, big impulse.
Rex West: Activating agent.
Jeff Jones: Yeah. Back and forth. They activate one another, and then there can be another role in the family at that 7:00 o’clock snuggled up there. And the person in that role, they want to do everything they can’t possibly help.
Rex West: So the reason it’s snuggled up is because it’s a supportive assistive.
Jeff Jones: Yeah. And oftentimes way help, they try to help, actually can enable the pattern to continue the problematic pattern continue to enable.
Rex West: Which is also one of those ones that people aren’t always really aware of that’s what they’re doing.
Jeff Jones: Yeah, absolutely. So what I like to say with enabling is for family members to really start to become aware of when is their words, their actions, is there, you know, relationship enabling addiction or past patterns, and when does that relationship enable health? So there’s always going to be some level of enabling going on, but what is being enabled, and the role at 7:00 o’clock, they are helping and doing things that often times the person in the center circle can do for themselves.
Rex West: Yes.
Jeff Jones: And should do for themselves. And that said, the other side of it is sometimes they can’t. And so there’s no black and white rules right here. It would be great if there were black and white rules and just do this, do this, like this.
Rex West: And that’s not that simple.
Jeff Jones: Yeah. Isn’t that what you tell your families? Yeah, here’s the prescription. You must do this and everything, I’m joking.
Rex West: Yeah.
Jeff Jones: Of course. But like with every interaction, individuals have to go inside and navigate for themselves. What’s the best thing to do here? And if they, their habitual patterning, their impulse, if they act on that without taking a pause, recognizing there’s a bigger picture here, there’s impersonal patterns here. Taking a breath, resourcing themselves, however they can take a breath as an example, or saying, Hey, I need five minutes. I’m going to go out for a little walk. It’s really important that we have this conversation. I’m going to come back and I want to have this conversation. I’m not leaving you, but I’m just taking a break to where when we have a conversation, I can do my best with it because I realize I’m getting triggered.
Rex West: Can you just say a word or two about, from my work and my perspective, one of the more important things I can help clients with is to understand what’s actually happening in their brain and nervous system with that kind of thing so they can understand. Why that’s so important, and powerful, and effective.
Jeff Jones: Yeah, so I mean, I guess one of the first things that I want to say is on my website, I have a video course called First Step. The First Step video course kind of thing or something. And there is like nine different videos there that I put together, and some quizzes after each one and–
Rex West: People love quizzes too.
Jeff Jones: Yeah, I mean,it’s like what I see that is so powerful with this video course is, it introduces new information, and part of the new information is just what you said Rex, and that is about the nervous system. You know like, some of it is the spotlight diagram, but belief systems cycle, like kind of how our thinking process comes from old beliefs and goes to whatever we take action on. And then the action that we take, we have a certain feeling about that and that feeling generally reinforces the old belief system and round and round we go, you know, so I don’t get into the part where, you know, the prefrontal cortex, there’s less blood flow to that, more the limbic, and the limbic is activation, the feeling center, and you know, the nervous system is activated. However, in that video course, I do talk about Stephen Porges diagram there and lay it out with, you know, on one side of the escalation is fight, you know, incremental kind of going from irritation, frustration, anger to rage. And on the flight side it’s more sadness, depression, withdraw up to panic. But that dotted line there, if it gets over rage, and gets over panic, then they’re in the parasympathetic nervous system and it’s more like a collapsed, the body feels collapse or it’s like there’s no hope here, you know, the person may feel trapped, suicidal ideation is possible. So that’s kind of the, technical kind of part of it, you know? But I try to keep it as simple as possible without getting into too much of that. And I’m not the best, I’m not a neuroscientist who could talk about all the different parts of the brain.
Rex West: Sure. But I think most people we work with, I’d say most people in general, have no idea about how any of that works.
Jeff Jones: When people learn to be aware of what’s happening in their own body and bring their own nervous system down, their thinking can expand, there’s some things they can do well themselves.
“When people learn to be aware of what's happening in their own body and bring their own nervous system down, their thinking can expand, there's some things they can do well, themselves.” –Jeff Jones Share on XRex West: Right. Which is empowering in a situation that’s really about feeling disempowered.
Jeff Jones: Bingo.
Rex West: My son is out of control drinking, I can’t do anything. Oh wait, I can do something, I can regulate myself, I feel better then solve the problem, and I feel better.
Jeff Jones: And when they regulate themselves, as you know, there’s more blood flow to the prefrontal cortex, they’re going to be in a much better situation to come up with what is the next best good decision for their particular–
Rex West: Superior thinking.
Jeff Jones: Yeah, in some ways what I’m doing is very simple, you know, but this is just a start to what I have to offer here. What I wanted to talk about, which we haven’t really gotten into yet is the intervention, and intervention, the old kind of intervention is the Johnson Model, and developed, you know, The Johnston Institute, and Brandon Johnson was an Episcopalian priest, and he created this and it has saved many people’s lives, you know.
Rex West: Could you explain that for people who would not know.
Jeff Jones: Well, the Johnson Model, a very simplistic way about it is, it’s the surprise model. You know, the family does all this planning behind their back–
Rex West: To surprise party.
Jeff Jones: Yeah. And they walk in, and it’s like there’s all these people there, yeah. And so– .
Rex West: We’re going to carry you.
Jeff Jones: Well, I mean, I’m not a big fan of that and I’m not a big fan of it because my nervous system, my body, my thinking process doesn’t fully align with that. And for people that want an interventionist that does that, I can refer them to intervention to do that.
Rex West: So then, can you, using this model we’re looking at and talking about, but bring in the neurology of what happens, especially to the, what we’re calling the identified patient, the person who’s in the middle of your diagram, they’re brought into that room, or whatever it is and boom, what’s going to happen?
Jeff Jones: Well, that’s a great question. I don’t always know what’s going to happen quite frankly.–
Rex West: If you hypothetically–
Jeff Jones: Yeah, sure, yeah, yeah. I mean, but I want to acknowledge I have seen some things that totally blow my mind and totally unexpected, and I really have a lot of faith in the power of family coming together, like moving towards more and more cohesion. But to go back to your question, oftentimes what happens is the individual who’s being surprised and saying, Hey, this is your intervention. We’re going to get you to go to treatment. Their nervous system is activated.
“I really have a lot of faith in the power of family coming together.” –Jeff Jones Share on XRex West: Yes.
Jeff Jones: Everybody’s nervous system is activated. And for family members who’ve been dealing with this for months, or years, or whatever, the baseline of that activation, which you know, if you can visualize Stephen Porges diagram, that baseline has creeped up, and up, and up, and it gets closer to that dotted line of overwhelmed. So then, you walk into an intervention like that and it’s like the power of it can be to keep that activated nervous system up, you know? And so there’s more fear, if there’s been trauma, I say if there’s been trauma. Any trauma that’s happened in the family will be amplified, will be reinforced, it can be really confusing. All of the focus is on that one person. I think at best what I’ve seen, and I’ve done some of these as a, you know, follow up to another kind of intervention that I’ll go into. But at best it can be individuals in the family writing letters, were the essence of the letter is of course identifying what they see, where the problems are, and their particular, what they’ve witnessed or heard, their particular concerns. But you know, so the message here at best is, we miss you. We notice that we have not been able to connect with you. We miss you. We want you back. So this is bringing attachment theory into an intervention by delivering everybody’s message. Everybody’s letter, kind of sending that message of we miss you. We want you back, kind of thing.
Rex West: Given the context that you are talking about, I know there’s other formats that you are looking at it and bring into this conversation, but for me a critical element here, especially if you are identified as the problem, the identified patient, from my perspective, the neurological reaction that will happen, which sure there are outliers that are anomalies of different things that happen, but overwhelmingly the reaction that will happen is that person will have the sense of being attacked. And the nervous system defaults automatically to defend. Which from my point of view, it really doesn’t care what letter they wrote. Well, I’m feeling attacked.
Jeff Jones: Yeah, yeah.
Rex West: I’m not doing this.
Jeff Jones: Right. And when someone’s feeling attacked, they have different ways to respond to that. Where like in those roles in the spotlight diagram one way could be to attack back.
Rex West: Yup. Strike out.
Jeff Jones: Counter attack. Well, who do you think you are asking me to go to treatment? You have a couple glasses of wine every night. I’ve been watching that for years. Actually. I grew up with that. So like, quit calling the kettle black kind of thing, you know, who are you to talk. So one is to, you know, counter attack and blame. But the other thing that I’ve seen before is that people are very sweet, and very nice, and they kind of avoid going into the problem, and you know, they express a lot of gratitude, and Hey sister, thank you very much. I want you to know that I can do this on my own.
Rex West: Which I’d say, given what you alluded to earlier, talking to those who portraits is really when it gets down to it, there’s two only two options, right? There’s fight or flight–
Jeff Jones: That one towards or away.
Rex West: Yeah. That one is like that, just kind of voided.
Jeff Jones: And then months later, you know, they can say, and I’ve heard this specifically from families I’ve worked where the individual has a therapist, we have a release of information and the therapist tells me they are really pissed off at their family because they felt attacked.
Rex West: Yeah. Yeah.
Jeff Jones: They never express that, you know, they express something else.
Rex West: But it is there.
Jeff Jones: But it is there. You know, like the Johnson Model, I want to say that is save people’s lives. And I know people who are in recovery who once they went into treatment, the hope is with that model, that once they’re in treatment that they will shift, you know, that they will make changes, and they will want to do it for them. And a lot of times they go into treatment for someone else.
Rex West: Yeah.
Jeff Jones: You know, but so that’s the old model. And then there’s the arise model, which was developed by one of my mentors, Dr. Judith Landau. She has a place in town, she has a house in Vail. She’s a Colorado person, and she teaches all over the world. And so she kind of stepped it up a notch or two. So it’s not a surprise to where it’s more an invitation, to where it’s like a family, or an individual in the family delivering the message that Hey, we’re really concerned about you. Ideally, the family has what I call a recovering message by that, you know?
“Ideally, the family has what I call them recovering message by them.” -Jeff Jones Share on XRex West: We’re concerned and here’s what we think would be good for you to try.
Jeff Jones: Yeah, I mean a recovery messages is like the past, present, future. Maybe a sentence of that, and I can get into that in another few minutes. But you know, the arise model was a big step in transparency. And so many people say, well if I told them they would never show up, you know, and maybe they will, maybe they won’t. But it empowers them, and the thing about that style of intervention is that the meetings continue where the Johnson Model, it’s a one shot deal like plan prep, figure out all the consequences, say them, and then do them, hold to them regardless of what happens. And that contributes to families being torn apart, conflict that goes on for years and years, or generations and generations.
Rex West: And does it really solve anything?
Jeff Jones: Well, it may get someone clean and sober, but from a family perspective, the patterns continue.
Rex West: Yes.
Jeff Jones: You know, so really what I am offering here and have been doing is working with the whole family, what I call the whole family healing. And so as an Intervention Model, it can really come at any time before their loved one is decided to go into treatment.
Rex West: And just to clarify what you do is based on The RISE Model?
Jeff Jones: It’s actually, I’ve had training from one of the guys who was one of the originators of the Johnston Institute, Wayne Rader who shared with me that spotlight diagram and from the perspective of, so Wayne Rader is one of my mentors as Judith, the creator of arise.
Rex West: So you have a combination of the two.
Jeff Jones: Yeah, yeah, yeah. And then what I’ve done that I think is unique and different is really brought in this understanding, this visual diagram in a larger picture understanding of these patterns that are impersonal trickling down onto the family who can’t help but personalize them.
Rex West: Yeah.
Jeff Jones: You know, and so when families see there’s an impersonal aspect, there’s a much, they have a much better opportunity to shift their thinking towards just being curious about what is that impersonal pattern here. I know there’s some kind of impersonal pattern here because I am sure how locked in the personal one and I am, you know, pissed off, activated, whatever the right language is there. So in working with families and coming up with a recovery message, a recovery messages essentially past, present and future. And so, one way to look at it could be a sentence of each and it could be very general from the standpoint of, in the past this family has had many struggles, right now I see you struggling more than anyone with X, Y, Z, whatever the specific content. Like what I really, my hope for you is that you’re willing to go to treatment, and get better, and our whole family can, you know, heal from this. So that could be a past, present, and future kind of message. When I work with families, I really want them to think about this, and personalize it to their family to make it real for them. Not that it’s just some, you know, wrote script kind of showing that I just went to–
Rex West: You do that with family, that’d you personalized it?
Jeff Jones: Well for one, like on the phone on the first call, I’m like, as they’re explaining to me what’s going on, I’m making a family map, I’m making a genogram.
Rex West: Do they know that you’re doing that while you’re doing it? Or it’s not that important?
Jeff Jones: They know a lot of times.
Rex West: Cause you tell them?
Jeff Jones: Cause I tell them, I’m going to ask some personal questions. Is that okay? And I’m also going to draw a picture of your family so I have a better understanding of what’s going on, and how I can best help, you know. So yeah, there’s a lot of detail and minutiae here. The essence of the recovery message that I think is a next generation intervention, and some of this comes from Dr. Gebauer Montay, I’m sure you know, but that is, it could be something like, thank you. It’s because of watching and being with you and your struggles, and really realizing and understanding my own struggles. And I want you to know that this didn’t start with you, it didn’t start with me, it goes a long way back in our family. And what I’ve done is I contracted for our whole family to engage in a healing process. And when I say a whole family, I mean you know, whoever, it could be grandparents, it could be siblings who are going to college across the country. And then I would so much appreciate it. Our love for you to be a part of this. And so you’re welcome to join us right now, and if you’re not ready, I want you to know that you’re welcome anytime you are ready.
Rex West: Sure.
Jeff Jones: So it’s kind of an incremental progression of how intervention has looked, you know, and I think where intervention can go.
“It's kind of an incremental progression of how intervention has looked… where intervention can go.” Jeff Jones Share on XRex West: Okay. I’m curious because I know my mind is drawn to details that I think people who are considering this kind of work and getting this kind of support also probably are drawn to details. How, cause you mentioned working with families who could be spread all across the country or the globe. How do you bring them all together so they can be part of this process?
Jeff Jones: Well, so I’m thinking of a family I worked with probably three or four years ago. The guy who contacted me lived in Singapore and he had a brother and a sister, and his brother was the one who was drinking a lot. He was in the Marines, and he was on a boat. And so, there were rules that he couldn’t drink on the boat, and he did. But when he got off the boat, you can imagine. So it was kind of like the bingeing pattern, and he had been at the hospital a number of times. And so the guy that initially was contacting me was the brother who lived in Singapore, who was a sister who was in Columbia, and then the mom and dad–
Rex West: Columbia, the country in South America?
Jeff Jones: Columbia, the country in South America.
Rex West: Alright.
Jeff Jones: And the mom and dad, and I think another family member. There were three people around Colorado, and I met with them, when the guy would come from the military and come back to visit his parents who would stay at his parent’s home. And he had just, you know, there was a hospital visit for something that happened to him. So they had this intervention set up and both parents were there. And the fact that both parents could be in the same room, and they have been divorced for a number of years, and they both had another partner, and they both supported their children. And so, it was great from that standpoint. But they were both in the room with their son.
Rex West: And what about the brother and sister, where were they?
Jeff Jones: They were on soon.
Rex West: Oh, okay, good. So you utilize technology.
Jeff Jones: Yeah.
Rex West: To actually, as much as you can bring the whole system.
Jeff Jones: Absolutely.
Rex West: Got it. That’s an important thing for people to know, I think.
Jeff Jones: Yeah. So I mean, we have this technology and there’s plenty of addiction type of things that can happen with technology as I’m sure you’re aware of. But there’s also some great benefits for it. And so, I really tried to glean the power of the internet. And you know, what I want to say is, I started going in to bringing other family members into family meetings with Skype, or Zoom call. You know, years ago when I went kicking and screaming because I was like, Oh my God, there’s no way I can ever do what I’ve done in person. And what I’ve realized Rex, I can actually do more.
Rex West: Oh, that’s great to hear.
Jeff Jones: I can actually do more. And you know, kind of organize things in a more systematic way and provide information that they can look at whenever they want to look at it to where it helps me from a coaching standpoint and having a program and a sequence of facilitated meetings, it helps me to be able to give an overview of a specific meeting of what to expect, you know, kind of like wind in meetings like that where I have a specific agenda and exercises with family meetings where families just need to talk about stuff to get on the same page and stuff that’s unique to that particular family.
Rex West: And have that ability to bring in everybody into that conversation as you, yeah.
Jeff Jones: Yeah, yeah. So I am a big proponent of a compliment to the solution to addiction in our country to expand how we look at it and bring in the voice of family members as being part of the solution. And the voice of family members, and I say the voice, but I’m saying the voice of family members who are engaged in a process and have support like what I’ve been talking about.
“So like I am a big proponent of a compliment to the solution to addiction in our country, is to expand how we look at it, and bring in the voice of family members as being part of the solution.” Jeff Jones Share on XRex West: Yeah.
Jeff Jones: You know, and they definitely do that in therapy. And that’s what, like as a therapist, when I’m working with an individual, like, if they can afford to go to a family therapist, I can refer them to that. If they will go to Al-Anon, and I plant that seed over, and over, and over again, you know, that’s another resources. There’s just not a lot of resources out there.
Rex West: Right.
Jeff Jones: You know, the SMART Recovery, there’s programs like that that are out there, you know, people can engage with. And around this area there’s Al-Anon, I don’t know. And there’s online stuff that people can be engaged with. And I know the Al-Anon message, not everyone. That’s not a fit for everyone. And I’ve seen, you know, people who stay engaged with that. I’ve seen people transform.
Rex West: Yup. Yup. The person that’s in the system, all of that.
Jeff Jones: Yeah. And their own belief systems, and their own thinking, and how open they are to changing some of that. And I want to say thank you very much to, you know, ask good questions, and I really get from talking to you. What an excellent therapist you are because I’m trying to do this overview and you’re bringing me back to this first step and I’m going, and I’m looking at the clock here, and how do we balance this and do this both things? So, I really appreciate the questions and your time doing this.
Rex West: It was fun. So maybe we should do it again sometime, it could be a series.
Jeff Jones: Yeah, yeah, yeah. So, and the one thing that I want to do is for people listening to this podcast and don’t really, they haven’t been to my website. To check out my website, it’s www.thefamilyrecoverysolution.com, all one word, no spaces.
Rex West: I’m glad you put that in the answer, people know where to go cause there’s a lot of great stuff here. Jeff, an absolute pleasure.
Jeff Jones: Yeah.
Rex West: Hopefully we can do it again.
Jeff Jones: Thank you.
Rex West: Yeah.
Jeff Jones: I appreciate it.