Family Advocacy

Family Advocacy:

Over the years as I have worked with families, I have found that the family or spouse, and at times an adult child has become reliant on me to help them navigate how to communicate with the addict/ alcoholic as the addict is working on their recovery. We have such a long, involved (Lifetime) history with our families usually around the addiction…that we don’t have healthy ways of interacting. We are interacting out of old patterns that don’t serve anyone.
The family member is as sick in the dynamic as the addict. They have their own traumas, resentments and abandonments to heal. I have watched for years as these families try to communicate using these “old tapes” and it is completely counter-intuitive…usually escalating both parties to further pain and emotional separation.
The goal in Family Advocacy is to have an intermediary that walks us through the intricacies of learning new ways of speaking our truth, TIMING of delivering information and learning tools that help us learn to create boundaries and start to heal ourselves.
I also absolutely refer to outside resources for your own Trauma work, grief work, Etc. What I do outside of that personal work is assist in navigating new ways of interacting that are more positive and supportive to all parties.
Lastly, I have had clients who’s spouse or child chooses to stay in their addiction/ negative behavior. These Clients have asked me to continue to work with them to help them to continue to separate themselves from their loved one emotionally to find their own identity outside of that relationship.