Four Levels of Support
A mother’s journey with her daughter’s substance abuse and mental health disorders.
In raising our three daughters, I yearned for a family counseling environment, something that I envisioned as a safe place to talk about difficult things. For me, this would provide the opportunity to gain insight and, as a family, learn skills to improve our communication and connection. My family viewed “family therapy” as something very different and resisted. While their resistance may have been to be expected, I followed the path of least resistance. We never got there.
So, when, at 20 years old, our eldest daughter began displaying symptoms of severe anxiety, depression and substance abuse, I went down a path of “if only” and “maybe now”. If only I had insisted on that family therapy, maybe we wouldn’t be here. Maybe now we’ll have to get into family therapy.
Eighteen months later, our daughter is living with new self-insight and daily coping skills and our family has stronger communication skills and connection. And, we have yet to engage in family therapy.
What I’ve discovered is that there are so many other tools and ways of support that are available. CRAFT Connect has helped each individual in our family along their own journey of self-discovery and learning as we have both supported our daughter and sister[1] , and grown as a unit.
CRAFT Connect offers four levels of support
Assess & Connect
Education
Support groups
One on one coaching
80% of family situations -- even those that include mental health and substance use disorders -- can be [addressed / improved] through these four levels of support.
In other words, before your family engages in specialized services like therapy -- and even if you never get to that level -- so much care can be provided to help you with your loved one who is struggling with a behavioral health disorder. Families can find themselves returning to pleasurable activities that have been disrupted by their loved one’s unwanted behaviors. And, their loved ones can find appropriate treatment and support for their recovery.
The first step is Assess & Connect. For our family, “assessment” came through our daughter’s clinical diagnosis and treatment providers. We were fortunate that early in our daughter’s journey we were connected to a Family Support Group. At that point, we felt that while our daughter was being cared for in a residential treatment program, we were able to commit to an initial CRAFT Connect Family Support Group series to learn more about what we could do to support her learning and recovery.
After having been in crisis mode for 90-days, CRAFT Connect was the first time that we were able to stop and look, assess, where we were as a family and as individuals. It helped us establish a system of safety as we worked through our life as a family with a loved one in a residential treatment program. And, it helped us prepare for her return to daily life.
Making a connection with other Concerned Significant Others (CSOs) who had experiences similar to ours was a breakthrough in those early days. I had already found it difficult to express things that made me uncertain or uneasy with our friends and extended family -- Are our daughter’s behaviors part of normal adolescence? Should I be concerned? But once words like “hospitalization”, “suicide attempt”, and “residential treatment” entered our family vocabulary and experience, we felt very alone. We were in shock ourselves, learning as rapidly as we could, and didn’t know how to talk about these things within our normal support system.
Connecting with the CRAFT Connect facilitators and other CSOs in a Family Support Group immediately provided a new space in which to absorb and navigate our experience. It reduced our panic and helped us “show up” for our daughter while she was in treatment. It gave us a new framework through which to understand our role -- and potential -- in her recovery.
I am grateful that a journey that started in the emergency room a year-and-a-half ago has led to a rich web of skills, insights, resources, support, and new behaviors that are helping our family and the individuals in it. Our daughter has repeatedly expressed her appreciation that we have taken learning and skill building seriously. She sees that as validation and support for her journey. And, she has expressed relief that she doesn’t have to be the one to “bring us along” as she lives her own recovery.
And yes, we have yet to get to family therapy. I still yearn for the day when we can come together and talk openly in a safe space about the way we have hurt one another. And, I know that regardless of how or if that day comes, we now have a daily practice and framework through which to better connect and support one another.
This website explains how CRAFT Connect can help you navigate living with a loved one with behavioral health and or substance use disorder. Please take the first step in your own journey by taking the Assessment then let us help connect you with the resources to meet you and your family’s needs.