Living While Loving Your Child Through Addiction

Heather is hosting a free CRAFT workshop about positive communication Wednesday, September 21st at 7 PM EST. Studies show that 70% of people who use CRAFT are likely to get their loved ones to seek treatment within a year. CRAFT also helps family members improve their own lives whether their loved one seeks treatment or not.  CRAFT is an acronym for C ommunity R einforcement A nd F amily T ra...

Beth, Joey, and Heather talk about how CRAFT (Community Reinforcement and Family Training) and coaching transformed their family so you can hear real-life examples of how this work can change your family too. The highlights of this episode are hearing how Joey feels about the changes he made and how Beth's mindset has shifted about Joey's substance use and the peace of mind she creates for...

On August 31st, 2021 Heather spoke at the Volusia County Recovery Alliance Keeping Hope event.  It was their 4th annual overdose awareness and remembrance day held in Daytona, Florida.  The event is in honor of International Overdose Awareness Day which acknowledges the grief felt by families and friends and remembers those who have died due to drug overdose. The day helps reduce the stigma of Sub...

Heather Interviews author Susan Lynch. Her memoir Life After Kevin A Mother's Search for Peace and the Golden Retrievers that Led the Way is a story about finding meaning when life challenges you in the hardest ways, healing through community, spiritual connection, and the transformation that comes from learning how to sit with intensely painful emotions to gain answers and clarity. Susan’s so...

Do you feel like you're failing because your child isn't sober yet? Supporting your child through their addiction is a marathon, not a sprint. The belief that "it's not working" can be very painful and cause you a lot of frustration. It can also make it harder for you to regulate your emotions around your child. When you have other measures for success on your journey, then y...

Heather shares 3 steps that will set the tone for how you and your child experience the boundaries you set. These steps will also make it easier for you to uphold the boundaries after you set them. This episode is a prequal to episode #10 about how to set boundaries. It’s what you need to do BEFORE you set a boundary. The 3 steps are: 1. Like your reason for setting the boundary 2. Decide ahead of...

Heather talks about the stages of change model. Making major changes that last concerning substance use is not easy for our kids. Knowing and understanding the stage of change your child is in will help you know what to do to support them and remove barriers to make it easier for them to move to the next stage.   3 things you’ll learn from the episode: The 6 stages of change What happens in each s...

Heather and guest Nicole Miller who is a certified drug and alcohol counselor and teaches addiction pharmacology to college students talk about how the brain is affected by substance use. The better we understand addiction the easier it is for us to collaborate with and support our kids. It also helps us take it less personally and have more compassion. 3 things you’ll learn from the episode: How...

Heather and returning guest Kelly Hatcher talk about what it was like when their kids went to rehab. They both experienced a major gap between their expectations about what rehab and sobriety would be like vs reality. Addiction and recovery are complex. Rehab and sobriety are stops on a lifetime journey. They are not destinations. Heather and Kelly hope that that by sharing their experience it wil...

When you're supporting your child through addiction, there are many uncomfortable and even painful experiences. The more capacity you have to tolerate emotional pain, the more capable and confident you feel about yourself and your ability to support your child. A willingness to learn from any experience, openness to change, and the capacity to express unpleasant feelings leads to emotional str...

Harm reduction is a set of practical strategies and ideas aimed at reducing negative consequences associated with drug use. It incorporates a spectrum of strategies that includes safer use, managed use, abstinence, meeting people who use drugs “where they’re at,” and addressing conditions of use along with the use itself. Harm reduction is critical to keeping people who use drugs alive and as heal...

How many times have you heard you can only help yourself? It's critical to help yourself, but it's not the only thing you can do. You can invite change in your child and create space for them to decide they want to change. We're constantly told that our kids won't change unless they want to, but we're rarely told that we can create favorable conditions for them to want to chang...

Join Heather as she explores three vital messages that can transform your perspective and help you navigate your  journey with renewed strength and resilience: 1. Your Personal Recovery Matters: Discover the significance of your own healing journey and why it's equally important alongside your child's recovery. Heather shares insights into dispelling the stigma surrounding addiction and th...

We're always dancing with the fine line between help and support that comes from a place of love and fixing that comes from a place of fear. Fear can show up in such sneaky ways that you don't realize you're trying to fix your child again.  The way out of that is going to the "safe zone" of focusing on connection. In this episode I give you 4 ways to identify that you're...

Even I struggle with fears of enabling. For many years I was a student of the tough love approach, trying to control, and beliefs that didn’t serve me about addiction. No matter how much time I put into creating beliefs that serve me and learning healthy ways to support Helanna, the fear of enabling rather than helping her was always there. As the result of much introspection about where things we...

Guest Nicole Kosanke, one of the authors of the book Beyond Addiction How Science And Kindness Help People Change and I talk about the book. Hear powerful insights about using CRAFT (Community Reinforcement and Family Training), positive reinforcement, and other strategies to help yourself and your child that's struggling with addiction. In this episode we discuss: What's happening in your...

How you show up for yourself determines how you experience your child's addiction. We aren't wired to be happy all the time. Struggling is inevitable and it's normal. There's wisdom in all our emotions, even the most difficult ones. We need to honor all the feelings that our life circumstances are triggering. Struggling well gives us new perspective so we don't get stuck in apa...

Healing starts for us when we connect with other parents like us to hear their stories and share our experiences.  When we do that we're no longer alone on this journey. Meeting and engaging with other parents gives us access to insights and resources we need. When we get the support we need, we find the safety and strength to accept ourselves and our children as we are in this moment. That&#3...

There’s a gap between what we expect in life and what we’re experiencing. In that gap is a loss. As parents we have hope and expectations. We expect a fulfilling relationship with our kids, family gatherings, milestones like prom and college, and we expect being a parent to feel good.  When addiction shows up we experience the painful gap between what we expect and our reality. We have to grieve t...

This is the hardest episode I've ever recorded and also the most important episode I ever recorded. There's no way I can move forward helping other parents without stopping to honor Helanna's life and what her time on this earth gave to me. This podcast wouldn't exist without her. I wouldn't be who I am today without her. The day that Helanna died I started wondering if I could...

Your thoughts create your reality. One poisonous thought can cause you a lot of unnecessary pain.  It can be the difference between discomfort and great suffering.  Recently I realized I had one thought about my future that was draining my creativity, making me feel like I had a limited time to enjoy myself, and it was setting me up to create a bad experience when I have the ability to create a re...

We had some great questions come up after my first interview with Helanna (episode 41) so did a second interview.  We discussed: Suboxone - how it helped - what she wishes she knew before she started using it - why she tapered off it. How I handled her getting off suboxone. Fears about losing her sobriety. What her brain says about why being sober won't work. How she knew she would use drugs f...

Healing your own emotional wounds is where the magic is when it comes to your child’s addiction. We’re all responsible for our own healing just like we want our kids to be. When you’re reactive no matter how hard you try not to be, then your child is triggering an emotional wound. The worst part about emotional wounds is we recreate them over and over again with our perception. We all want love, a...

When you argue with reality you lose, but only 100% of the time - Byron Katie When you accept reality, your options are limitless - Heather Ross Your child's addiction can leave you feeling limited and hopeless. There are always more options than your brain is offering you.  In this episode I walk you through moving beyond resistance into solutions. I mentioned tapping in the podcast today.  H...

This week I got to interview my daughter.  You've been hearing my experience of her addiction so I think that it's important to hear what her experience was like. Some of the things we talked about:  · What was it like when I looked to you to be ok to make me feel better instead of me being stable for you? · What else did I do that wasn’t helpful to you? · What did I do that was helpful to...