The Four Foundations of Family Recovery: September 2010

Dear Friends,

In this week’s Four Foundations teleseminar session we learned about what it means to ‘Be a Loving Person.’

When I spoke to a dear friend in the 12 step rooms about why it is important to be a loving person, she talked about how it frees us from inner conflict. Here are her words:

“Being a loving person stops the inner wars. When we are in a place where we are willing to be loving to ourselves and others, we can stop the debates inside ourselves. We are doing it for the right reason: namely, because it is what we are called to do as spiritual beings.”

This powerful reason to do be loving, ‘because it is what we are called to do as spiritual beings’ really gets its legs in the definition of being loving and in the how of being loving, which are what we spent the majority of the class discussing.

The lifetime journey of recovery celebrates the importance of being loving, just as it embraces self care, setting boundaries and being supportive of one another. The lovely thing about having these principles to remind us what the basics of recovery are, is that when things get difficult, we can take ourselves through a simple checklist to get our selves back on track.

Okay, what do I need to take care of myself in this situation? What is the loving response? What kinds of boundaries do I need to set? What kinds of support do I need?

If you would like a refresher on the basics or know someone who would benefit from an introductory overview of the family recovery journey, please send them my way. I will welcome them to our next class on the Four Foundations which will be starting later in October.

Check out my website for more details at www.theempowermentcoach.net and go to the 4 Foundations of Recovery link.

The spiral of growth in recovery keeps us coming back to the basics and each time we do, we experience them in a deeper, more meaningful way.

For more on being a loving person, read my blogpost Unconditional Love toward the Addict – Whether You Stay or Go on www.12stepfamily.com

All the best,
Beverly A. Buncher, MA, CEC
Family Recovery Coach
www.theempowermentcoach.net
www.12stepfamily.com
www.fourfoundations.blogspot.com
www.familyrecoverycoach.org
786 859 4050
recoverycoachbev@theempowermentcoach.net
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Dear Readers,

I'm really excited about the opportunity we will have to work together in a couple of weeks on my 4 Foundations Teleseminar! In case you missed the preview call, here is an overview of the course for your perusal. (You can also read a full transcript of the call or listen to the recording by going to www.theempowermentcoach.net and following the left hand link to 4 Foundations of Recovery.)

In six sessions, we will study each of the foundations and you will have the opportunity to begin implementing them meaningfully into your life. I'll be giving you handouts from my forthcoming book The Four Foundations of Family Recovery: Simple Ideas to Transform Chaos to Sanity to help you grow in your ability to understand and use these tools, and you will have the opportunity to work with me and the other people in the class to become more and more comfortable using them. In addition to handouts from the course, and a recording of each class, if you sign up this week, you will receive a free coaching session during the course to help you better implement the four foundations and, all of this for $29!

People have asked me why I am ‘giving’ this course away for so little. Here’s why:

It is my passion to help families of addicts and alcoholics get their own lives on track for two reasons:

1. You getting recovery is your addict's best chance of getting well. This is what I was told when I first started my recovery journey and I have found it to be true over all of these years: When I am focusing on my own recovery journey, it does affect my loved ones. When I get off track, I'm no longer part of the solution. I become part of the problem.

2. There is no guarantee that the addict’s life will get better but if you 'get' recovery yours will!

So, I'm inviting you today to become part of the solution in your loved one's life and in your own! And if money is an issue, don’t let that hold you back! Call me and let me know.

You matter to me! I know that sounds funny since we may not even know each other yet. But I've walked in your shoes and I am inviting you to take a path designed especially for people like us, whose lives have been touched by the addiction of someone we love.

So, join me for the course...Enroll Today!!

In case you haven’t heard the preview recording or read the transcript, here is some background information for you on the course…

This course has its roots in the family recovery programs, recovery coaching, in which I am trained, and the current literature on codependency. What makes this course unique is that I have put the principles of family recovery into a simple usable format which my clients find very helpful whether or not they have attended a 12 step meeting or read a codependency book themselves. The point is that these ideas work.

This course is especially designed to help a newcomer to recovery who may or may not plan to get involved in a recovery group, or get a recovery coach, or read a book. But it can also work for a person who has been in recovery for awhile but could use a refresher, either because they are going through a crisis right now or because they enjoy deepening their understanding of these ideas and are always looking for ways to grow in this area of their lives.

Some people are not into groups, or get impatient with the sometimes slow, cumulative effect of going to 12 step family meetings. This course is designed as a quick start or booster course to put everything in context.

It’s not a replacement for the sometimes hard, day-to-day work of recovery. Rather, it provides a context within which to see family recovery that can really keep you going when things get tough.

Before we tackle the four foundations in the course, we will focus on four additional recovery principles that I refer to as the four cornerstones of family recovery. These ideas, which, if you have been following my blog are now somewhat familiar to you, can help us make more sense of the four foundations and of our need to recover at all.

They are:

1. The Four C’s: You didn’t cause it, you can’t control it, you can’t cure it. And the MOST important C in my mind: But you don’t have to Contribute to it. In other words, You are NOT responsible for your addict’s addiction and you can’t fix it. But you CAN do certain things that can make things worse or better.

2. The Three A’s: Awareness, Acceptance, Action – These three ideas mean becoming aware of what is happening right in front of your eyes without allowing yourself to slide back into denial of the truth of your addict’s addiction, accepting its presence and your own reactions to it without judgment, and then on that basis taking wise, planned action steps.

3. Breathing through each moment. – This is about getting centered from within. It’s about breathing in and out, slowly and deeply, in order to stop the automatic crazy response that we often have in reaction to the insane behavior of your addict.

4. You are your addict’s best chance of recovery when you focus on yourself, learn when to speak and when to shut up with your addict, when to get involved and when to mind your own business.

With these four cornerstones in place, we are ready to go into the four foundations themselves.

By the way, we will go into depth on these four cornerstones in our first call of the course and we will practice responses to the addict based on them, during that time. After we do that, you will be ready to tackle the Four Foundations of Recovery, each of which will have their own call in the course.

As a quick review, the four foundations of family recovery self care, being a loving person, setting boundaries, and getting support:

Let’s start with self care:

During the course, we will look deeply at the current state of your self care and what you need to do to get it where you want it to be.

You will have the opportunity to develop a plan for better self care, and, begin to implement it. This is something my coaching clients often report feeling the effects of almost immediately. It is a powerful way to make a statement to yourself, your loved ones and the world that you are turning a new page, that your loved one’s disease is no longer going to dictate every aspect of your life. But more than just a statement, it is a way to begin feeling better almost right away.

Foundation two is ‘be a loving person:’

If I heard this once in early recovery I heard it a million times, and often I hated hearing it. But, it is probably one of the most impact full things a family member can learn to do.

Of course we will go into depth on call three on how to do that, especially when you are angry because it can be very difficult. You will find out how much of a fixer you are at this point and how to switch gears to a more loving and detached way of relating to your addict.

Next we will look at foundation 3: set boundaries.

This one is one of the most challenging pieces for many family members to do consistently and of course one of the most important when it comes to keeping your sanity and jolting your addict into taking responsibility for their own life.

We will take a setting boundaries self-assessment and you will have the opportunity to begin developing a plan for boundary setting in your own life.

Finally, foundation 4: Get support!

We will talk about how putting this one foundation into practice can save your life AND lead to a stronger ability to practice the other three more effectively. We’ll look at the myriad of support options for family members and you will receive a long list of possible support options among the course materials.

Enroll today!!

Looking forward to the journey!

All the best,

Coach Bev

Beverly A. Buncher, MA CEC

Family Recovery Coach

www.theempowermentcoach.net

www.12stepfamily.com

www.intherooms.com

(T) 786.859.4050