The Difficult Realities of Using The Invitation To Change With A Child Struggling With Drugs or Alcohol, with Brenda Zane

ABOUT THE EPISODE:
Because I sit at a vantage point of seeing many parents working to understand and implement the Invitation To Change Approach (ITC) with their child who struggles with substance misuse, I see things others don't. I hear the frustrations and the celebrations, and I know that while an approach like the ITC is very powerful and effective, it isn't a magic wand.

Sometimes, the more difficult aspects of using a compassion and empathetic-centric approach to a very scary and challenging problem don't get talked about. In today's short, solo episode I wanted to highlight and pick apart some of the more difficult and less-discussed challenges you may be facing. There's also a short but important pep talk just in case you're feeling a bit deflated at the moment.

EPISODE RESOURCES:

• Beyond Addiction; How Science and Kindness Help People Change - buy it here
• Learn more about The Invitation To Change approach here

This podcast is part of a nonprofit called Hopestream Community
Learn about The Stream, our private online community for moms
Learn about The Woods, our private online community for dads
Find us on Instagram: @hopestreamcommunity
Download a free e-book, Worried Sick: A Compassionate Guide For Parents When Your Teen or Young Adult Child Misuses Drugs and Alcohol

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Transcript

0:02

I know you may have moments when you wish everything could just go back to normal. I know you You wish you could rewind to the days when your family was a tighter unit, when there wasn't so much drama and friction. And, I get that. I hear you. I felt the same. What I didn't understand as I had those feelings was that in those days, when I was observing a happier, calmer family, from my vantage point, my son was extremely uncomfortable and unhappy. I just didn't see his pain. You're listening to HopeStream. If you're parenting a young person who misuses substances, is in a treatment program, or finding their way to recovery, you have landed in the right place. This is your private space to learn from experts and gain encouragement and support from me, Brenda Zane, your host and fellow mom to a child who struggled. This podcast is just one of the resources that we offer for parents. So after the episode, head over to our website, HopeStreamCommunity. org. I am so glad you're here. Take a deep breath, exhale, and know that you have found your people. Now let's get into today's show. Hey friend, I am excited to have time today to just chat one on one. It's always nice to have a check in. See how you're doing and share a few things that I'm thinking about. I know it's a one way conversation But I always hope that something inside of you gets sparked and that even if you just noodle on it yourself That it'll be helpful or better yet If you can share some of these things with a safe person in your life Or maybe a friend or somebody that you know that also has a kiddo struggling that can be really beneficial Before I dive into what I want to share with you today Will you close your eyes for a quick sec? I know that might feel weird, but if it's safe, like you're not driving or anything, just pause what you're doing, close your eyes, take three really deep breaths. I promise it won't break you or anything. I just know that you might need to get grounded and center yourself. in the simple act of closing your eyes and taking three deep breaths is hugely effective. Also, in case no one has told you yet today, you are an elite level parent. You are amazing and strong and you've likely done things today that many parents will never ever have to do or think about. Your tolerance and perspective may have shifted to where you consider your strength and tenacity to just be normal. You may have forgotten that it is normal to sit down and rest or go on a walk and jam out to some awesome music or do absolutely nothing. You may not recall the last time someone gave you a hug and told you what a truly incredible human being you are. I know all of this because I know what you go through. Whether your young person is struggling and using right now or even if they're in treatment or early recovery, this is not a cakewalk. You're still making big decisions, figuring out next steps, tamping down anxiety about what's next, and you're also living your life, taking care of other people, working, being an active member of your community. it is so, so much. You do so much. And if no one has told you today what a badass parent you are, I am telling you now. It's not other people's fault that they don't see this in you because they probably have no clue what it's like to be in your shoes for a day. Wouldn't that be a wild virtual reality experience for someone? Someone should create that. But anyway, if people did walk in your shoes for a day or a week, they would have an entirely new respect and admiration for you. So now that you've taken three deep breaths, please give yourself a A giant pat on the back for being here, for being you, and for being invested in everything that you are doing for your child and your family. It is not easy. And I want and need to recognize that. Today I thought I would share a few insights and perspectives with you that have just been rumbling around in my mind. I have the beneficial vantage point of kind of flying overhead and observing so many parents who are on what I call with capitals, the rollercoaster ride with their kids. And this viewpoint allows me to see and hear things that you might not. So here are a few observations I feel are important to talk about with you. Number one, using the invitation to change or craft approach is just that. It's an approach. It is not a magic bullet. And when I say invitation to change, just interchange that for craft just think of it as that because it is actually craft plus a few other tools. Thank you. So, I will default to using Invitation to Change or ITC. I hear from parents who say, well, I've been doing this whole Invitation to Change thing and my kid is still smoking weed every day or drinking or whatever they're doing. And I know that can be true because the Invitation to Change approach is a set of tools and skills and mindsets. It's something you do to change the way you are. It is not a causal relationship where you do X and then because of that, they will do Y. That would be amazing, but it's not the case. However, when you do X, there is a greater chance that they will do Y because you're creating conditions in which it's easier, safer. example of that because I know sometimes this can get a little bit nebulous. My daughter comes home drunk and smells like a cannabis dispensary. She's argumentative, she's irritated, she's a little paranoid, and just generally in a really bad negative mood. She opens the fridge and complains that there's never any food in our house to eat and slams the door. She says really meanly to my face. Why isn't there ever anything to eat in this house? Tension is high. She's aggravated. I'm annoyed and mad. This is a scenario that is getting way too common and I am done with it. I'm exhausted and I wish that she would just get her act together. You likely know this situation. Maybe instead of a daughter, you have a son or you have a non binary child. It's all the same you likely can play this scenario out in your head, so I won't play it out anymore. At this point I have a few choices of how to react or to respond. I can engage and argue and open the fridge and point out the 17 things there that she can eat. I can tell her how expensive food is today and how she should be grateful that she has a home that actually has a full refrigerator. This will almost guarantee a charged debate where she's going to get even more aggravated and angry. I will do the same. And we'll yell and spiral until she slams out the door saying she's gonna go find somewhere to live where there is food and not me. I will cry and pace with my heart racing and vow to myself the day she turns 18 I am kicking her out of the house. Or I can stand and listen to her rant about the food situation, taking deep breaths while she does. I can disconnect from taking her complaints personally because I know she's under the influence. I'll recognize that this is a red light situation where I should lean back, not engage, and let things diffuse. I will make a genuine effort to empathize with her about how it sucks to not like any of the food that's around. And take my chamomile tea to my room. letting her know I am turning in to read. There is no yelling, no screaming, no holes kicked in the wall, or anger. She pouts, rolls her eyes, slams the refrigerator doors, and stomps to her room. Later, I will probably hear her pull a bag of chips from the pantry, and then I turn on a sleep inducing meditation, put my heated lavender filled rice pack on my chest, and allow myself to sleep. When you put yourself in your daughter's shoes, which scenario would create a condition where she would be more likely to come home again, even if she was under the influence, which is good, and less likely to equate home and me, her mother, with fighting, anger, and drama, all of which makes her want to go out and get drunk. These are the conditions you create that are more likely to motivate her to be open to coming home, open to talking with you at some point. And again, it is not a guarantee. So back to you do X and she does Y, you are in control of what you do, the X, and you are not in control of what she does, the Y. The good news is though that if you do your X, you're going to feel better regardless of whether she does Y. You'll be more grounded, centered, and have better tools for communicating and be taking care of yourself with healthy boundaries and self-care. And the more you do that, the more likely it is that she will notice you are changing. And when she notices that you are changing, she may come to realize it's okay for her to change to again, not a guarantee. So my message here is if you are using the invitation to change approach and your child isn't seeming to change, for example, they're still drinking and or using substances in a harmful way, it is not necessarily that you're doing it wrong. For one thing, it takes time. People don't change quickly and they may not yet be feeling any or enough consequences. that make change feel necessary or beneficial. Also, what I see over and over is if your child still has an unhealthy relationship with substances, if you are consistent in using these tools, your patterns of communication are likely going to get better and healthier. And that, my friend, is a huge win and a precursor to further positive change. The other message here is that if you're doing this on your own and learning the tools outside of a group or a coach for support, you may want to consider getting some additional input. These protocols are intended to be used as designed by the professionals who created them, and you want to make sure you're using them at their highest fidelity to ensure that they're actually going to have an impact. That's why in HopeStream community, we teach the invitation to change protocols every single week. And we have a video library of each session because we want to make sure the information is being relayed as intended and in context with real life situations. The next observation I think is critical for me to relay to you From my balcony seat view is that using these approaches using the invitation to change using craft Does not mean that you do all the work all the time and sacrifice yourself For your child or the person you're here for I hear sometimes, I'm exhausted from trying to learn all of this. I'm trying to figure out how to implement it with my child. I feel guilty because I know I'm supposed to be doing this self care thing and I just can't figure it out. I feel like I'm going to explode because I am trying not to yell at my son anymore. So I just bottle it all up and on and on. And that is not the intent at all. A big part of the Invitation to Change approach is that first and foremost, you are taking care of yourself in a way that feels good to you. It means you take care of your safety, your mind, your body, your relationships, your sanity. If you read the book Beyond Addiction, you will see at the very beginning of the book is a section all about self care and self limits. And then at the end, there's another section about creating and living your life regardless of your loved one's relationship with and use of substances. So you are really the star in this movie. Your child gets a supporting role, but think of yourself as the celebrity who is shoring up your resources to go on an epic adventure. And if you're not equipped for the adventure, it's not going to be a great movie. So how does this come to life? Like, what do I mean when I say you're the star? To me, it means yes, you read the books, you're part of a community, you have a therapist. Those are, for me, just Brenda's opinion, the absolute non negotiables of this experience. Once those are in place, You get to decide when and how you implement the things you learn. The parents I work with tend to want to jump in 1, 000 percent and do it all at once, which makes perfect sense because you want things to change and ideally you want them to change quickly because everyone's very uncomfortable and your child's substance use is dangerous. Makes sense that you want to go all in. But if you try to eat the whole elephant in one bite, you are likely to choke. So we always recommend taking this in chunks that you can chew and swallow. That may mean spending two to three weeks learning about addiction, learning about today's substances, what they do to the brain and body, and get steeped in enough of the science to understand what your child is up against. Of course, I'll put recommended books and resources in the show notes. So you have a nice concise list if you want to avoid the overwhelm of Google or Amazon. It also might mean creating some agreements with your partner or an ex partner about your plans to use the invitation to change approach. Thanks so much. And make sure that you can get on the same page or at least have a conversation about why you want to move ahead with this approach. Being a united front is going to get you much further, much faster than if you're on opposing sides and your child is caught in between. Then I always say start with a series of experiments. Don't look at this as I'm going to completely change my mindset and approach overnight forever. That is likely going to choke you as well. So take a skill like positive reinforcement or a mindset of curiosity or use open ended questions and make a concerted effort to experiment with those for a couple of weeks and see how it goes. It might sound crazy, but think about keeping a journal of these experiments and see what happens. as you shift your mindset and behavior. If you don't track the outcome of your experiment, it will likely all get blurred together with everything else that you have going on and then you may question whether or not what you're doing is making a difference. And when I say making a difference, what we're talking about, my friend, are inches here, not miles. It takes time. Your child is going to wonder what the heck is going on with you. And it means that you just stay consistent with what you're doing, even if you don't see an immediate result. One thing you can do, and I highly recommend doing, is find a time when you can have a very casual very casual and short conversation with your child or your loved one and just give them a heads up that you're working on some stuff and if they notice you're being a little different it's because you're trying out some new things. Let them know you've noticed xyz like yeah i noticed that i have this tendency to nag you a lot about your school work or i noticed that we tend to get into arguments about drinking a lot so i'm working on finding ways to be different about that. Boom. Leave it there. You don't have to go into a ton of detail, and you may not even want to, but this little message sends them clues that you are willing to make a change on yourself, and they may just decide that it is okay for them to do the same. So those were the things I wanted to share and to recap because I know I went on a few tangents number one the invitation to change or craft are Approaches they are not magic bullets But at the very least the very least if your child doesn't stop or lessen their harmful substance use You are almost guaranteed to feel better mentally and physically and your communication will likely improve Worst case scenario. And number two, using this approach does not mean that you sacrifice yourself to do all the things to help your child. Your health and well being is actually a critical element of following and using the invitation to change approach. I know you may be feeling bruised and beat up from a situation that feels unfair and unsolvable. I know you may have moments when you wish everything could just go back to normal. I know you You wish you could rewind to the days when your family was a tighter unit, when there wasn't so much drama and friction. And, I get that. I hear you. I felt the same. What I didn't understand as I had those feelings was that in those days, when I was observing a happier, calmer family, from my vantage point, my son was extremely uncomfortable and unhappy. I just didn't see his pain. So for me to want to rewind meant that I would be returning to a facade that I thought was fun and functional, but really it wasn't for him, which means I wouldn't want to go back there when he was suffering quietly. It wasn't until he started going off the rails, using substances, leading a crazy high risk lifestyle, that the alarm bells rang and we as a family started on this path you For us all to become healthier and better at regulating our emotions and just dealing with the mess that life throws at us. It's like the stormy ocean analogy. Before things went crazy in her house, what I saw was a calm surface. A few waves here and there, but you know, overall things looked calm. But what my son was experiencing and feeling was underwater. Where I couldn't see the swirl of tides that were clashing, the shark circling around him, I couldn't see the storm that was brewing and boiling him. And it would be unfair to want to go back to that scenario, to continue along in life just seeing what I wanted to see, and not getting him out of that stormy sea. Well friend, you're still here with me, and I know sometimes it can feel like a lot. So what can you do today, even if it's just five minutes, that will tell your body and your soul that it is loved and important. Whatever it is, please do that. Think of it as a vital part of your child's treatment and recovery plan, because it truly is. I would love to ask you to do one quick thing before we sign off. And that is if you would go into your podcast player, whether that's an Apple or Spotify or Audible or Google, wherever you listen and just tap the stars to rate the podcast, that shows that people are listening and engaged in the podcast. And you'll be helping another parent. Who's in a difficult time and looking for resources. if you listen in apple in particular, you're going to go to the main page of hope stream and then just scroll down about five episodes. You'll see some stars. You can tap those. It also gives you the option to write a review. So if you do listen and get something out of this podcast, doing that would mean the world to me. and don't forget if you would like to get a transcript for the show today, there's always a transcript at the show notes page and that is at brendazain. com forward slash podcast. Well, that's a wrap for today. Don't forget to download the brand new ebook we have called worried sick. It is totally free and it will shed so much light on positive tools and strategies that you can use like the invitation to change right now, starting today. to begin creating conditions for change in your home and in your relationships. It's at HopeStreamCommunity. org forward slash worried. Please be extra good to yourself today. Do that thing that you thought of a few minutes ago that you wanted to do. Take some deep breaths and know you've got this. You're not doing it alone and I will meet you right back here next week.