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The Relationship Blueprint: Unlock Your Power of Connection
Colleen is a student of Dr. Harville Hendrix and Dr. Helen LaKelly Hunt who created the Imago Theory and have brought this work to over 50 countries around the world. She is profoundly influenced by this belief shared by Dr. Harville Hendrix. He said, "We are born in relationship, wounded in relationship and healed in relationship."
What are you struggling with today? Colleen believes that almost any problem we have began with a broken or unhealed relationship. The anxiety or deep sadness we feel often began with unresolved issues in our relationships with our parents, partner, family or friends. When we have unmet needs we are programed to get those needs met. When we don't get what we need we protest by protecting ourselves. this often looks like defensive, critical, demanding behaviors. these behaviors are most often ineffective. As a result we may develop unhealthy relationship with food, sex, gambling our or a substance.
Colleen invites world renown relationship specialists from all over the world to help her guests explore their own relationships and see their problems through a relational lens. She will help us explore how to create intimacy to deepen our connections. Her listeners will gain insights to create a more joyful life.
Colleen is a Licensed Professional Counselor in the state of South Carolina, a certified, Advanced Imago Clinical therapist, a clinical instructor for the Imago International Trading Institute while maintaining her clinical practice in Hilton Head Island, South Carolina.
Thank you for joining Colleen today. Remember, don't let life happen to you. You can be the architect of your relationships. Join her next time on the Relationship Blueprint; Unlock Your Power of Connection.
Contact Colleen at colleen@hiltonheadislandcounseling.com for questions or to be a guest on the show!
The Relationship Blueprint: Unlock Your Power of Connection
Healing Beyond Sobriety: The Transformative Power of Love and Connection in Recovery with Maureen Brine
Join us for an illuminating conversation with Maureen Brine, a leading figure in addiction recovery and Imago Relationship Therapy. With over three decades of experience, Maureen opens up about her personal journey, exploring how growing up as an adult child of an alcoholic and being a mother to a son in recovery has shaped her unique approach to healing. Maureen shares her belief that interventions are profound acts of love, underscoring the critical role of family in the recovery journey. She also offers a glimpse into her upcoming book, "Recovering Hearts," which promises to redefine recovery by focusing on familial and relational support.
Discover how addiction often stems from unmet childhood needs and explore the connection between addiction and attachment issues, guided by the principles of Imago therapy and the insights of Gabor Maté. Through heartfelt stories, we explore the transformative power of genuine connection and empathy, challenging the conventional focus on mere sobriety. Listen to how these powerful insights compelled a shift in supporting loved ones, emphasizing that understanding the pain beneath the addiction can lead to deeper healing and recovery.
As we navigate the roadblocks of recovery, we address the challenges that families face, including increased divorce rates and the vital importance of self-care. Maureen provides thoughtful advice on choosing therapists who truly understand addiction and the significance of setting compassionate boundaries. Rejecting the idea of tough love, we highlight the importance of perseverance, love, and community in fostering recovery. Through personal triumphs and community support, we reveal how connection is not just a support mechanism but a beacon of hope and transformation.
Thank you for joining me today on the Relationship Blueprint. Remember, don't let life happen to you. You can be the architect of your relationships. So join me next time on the Relationship Blueprint; Unlock Your Power of Connection.
Contact Colleen at colleen@hiltonheadislandcounseling.com for questions or to be a guest on the show!
Hello Maureen.
Speaker 2:Hey Colleen, how are you? Coco Great, our listeners might be confused. My birth name is Colleen and a lot of my friends and my dear friends in the Imago community all call me Coco, which is also my grandmother name. That's how it all started.
Speaker 1:Wow, that's cool, right yeah, what would you like me to call you today? Coco, that's what you call me. That is what I call you.
Speaker 2:Today I am honored to welcome our guest, maureen Brine. Maureen is an amazing person. I took some notes. Maureen has been with Intervention Canada since its inception and is a highly respected expert in the field of addiction recovery and relationships. Field of addiction recovery and relationships, with over 35 years of experience. She has conducted hundreds of interventions and has profoundly impacted families, communities and individuals, as well as organizations. So thank you for your service to the recovery community. It's challenging work.
Speaker 1:That is for sure, and rewarding work too.
Speaker 2:And rewarding. Maureen is not only an international addiction specialist but an advanced Imago relationship therapist, educator, couples counselor. She is on the faculty of Imago International Training Institute and I have been fortunate enough to assist Maureen in a training. She's working with Iran now. I was honored to do that and it was a wonderful experience. Also, she's been in private practice since 1985, working both in Vancouver and Toronto. She is a sought-after global speaker, workshop presenter and amazing trainer.
Speaker 2:As a former director of the Donwood Institute in Toronto, maureen's focus is on addressing addiction and strengthening relationships through imago therapy. She brings a deep understanding of family organizations and recovery, working with the entire family to create lasting change, and what I know about that is that the road to recovery is sometimes a lonely journey and including the family makes all the difference in the world. With her own experience as an adult of an alcoholic, maureen has made it her mission to highlight the role families play in addiction dynamics. She believes that interventions are a true gift of love, a guided heart-to-heart conversation that can set the stage for recovery and healing for everyone involved. Maureen, welcome to the Relationship Blueprint. Unlock your Power of Connection.
Speaker 1:That's so sweet. Thank you, coco. I feel honored to be here as well, and thank you for inviting me, and I hope we'll do maybe many of these over the years. I think it's so important to talk about recovery and recovery in Imago, so I'll say a lot about that today. Yeah, I come well qualified to talk about addictions and recovery. As you said, I am an adult child of an alcoholic father who did get into recovery, which was a blessing, and I'm also the mother of a son in recovery and he's coming up on his seven-year medallion in February and I couldn't be a prouder mama if I tried.
Speaker 2:Seven years.
Speaker 1:Yeah, can you believe it? I know, you know. Just he, just when I thought there was no hope. You know he pulled it together. I'll start out by quoting him. We do talks together periodically. It might be fun to have us on here sometime. Actually, I would love that. Yeah, it's fun. And one of the things that he said at his first year medallion was he likes to say I'm here because of my mother, but more than that, he says I'm here because she was the only person that never gave up on me, and I felt like I was about to lose the only person in my life that's loved me, like I was about to lose the only person in my life that's loved me, right, and so that was pretty profound. I mean, he now knows the love of his father, which is great.
Speaker 1:I'm on a journey right now of writing a book. It's called Recovering Hearts. Yes, oh, I guess I didn't tell you. Yeah, yeah, that's exciting, yeah, so I've got a couple of chapters into it at this point and loving it. But basically, what I'm looking at is recovery through a relational lens, and I think that's where I'd like to start today. As you said, you know, I've done 10 seasons of intervention the TV show Intervention, which is now on A&E, and the reason that I did that show was for the families. What my book is about is that most treatment centers addiction counselors, hospitals, therapists, most and 12 Steps included, and I'm a big fan of 12 Steps. As you know, they operate primarily out of the individual paradigm and I think that is too bad. I mean, I think that they get that when a person develops an addiction, they become self-absorbed and they move away from all the people in their life, and recovery has to be about giving up the addiction and returning to people Right.
Speaker 2:Could you just pause there for just one second, because I feel, like our listeners, the idea of an individual paradigm approach with therapists and 12 steps and treatment centers etc. That you've named. I think that it would be good to help clarify that for our listeners because they may not understand that.
Speaker 1:Yeah, what that means Okay.
Speaker 2:Yes.
Speaker 1:Yeah, I do think that you know, beginning with AA way back when right, that Bill and Bob thought that someone, in order to recover from an addiction, has to give up the addiction and return to people, and so that's largely the way our systems are set up, that, you know, someone gets into recovery. They go to maybe a 12-step meeting or they go to treatment, but they're treated as an individual rather than looking at the whole family and, in particular, if there's a partner there, including the partner in the treatment program. At best partners and families may get a one-week program somewhere in the treatment center, but the focus is on getting the person with the substance abuse into recovery, into treatment and recovery. The focus is on the individual, not the whole. That includes their family, and that certainly was the case with when my dad got into recovery. I mean, I was working in the field of addiction already and you know, basically they offered my mother a one-week program and that hasn't changed very much in the last 50 years.
Speaker 1:And what we know in Imago is that we're born in relationship, we're wounded in relationship and we need to heal in relationship. So typically the coupleship has been ignored in recovery, in recovery and I think my personal story not my personal story, but my story is that Bob and Bill did not know what to do with spouses, so they formed Al-Anon. And you know, typically what happens is the person suffering from addiction goes one way with their treatment program and recovery and then the partner goes their way with Al-Anon or family program or individual therapy and the couple grows apart. Yes, and so you hear so much in the first year of recovery that the partner feels widowed to the recovery program of the substance abuser.
Speaker 2:I think when you're saying abandoned, I think what we might want to elaborate on is that people in early recovery are going to meetings sometimes twice a day, and that the partner that's at home, and even maybe the children, feel like we lost dad to the booze, but now we've lost him to those people.
Speaker 1:Yeah, exactly, that's exactly it right, and there's no doubt that that support is needed. And so what my book is about is getting the couple, and particularly the couple, the pair bond into recovery together as soon as possible, and that's not instead of what someone might need individually, but the best resource for healing is that pair bond, is the couple. Yes, yes, and that's what Imago is all about. That Imago is about, you know, we heal in relationship and that person in recovery needs their partner to be on that healing journey with them.
Speaker 2:Yes, and Maureen, what I would say about the 12-step meetings so often is that people that are new in recovery are struggling, yes, to stay sober. Recovery are struggling, yes, to stay sober, but also like they feel a sense when they're in the room, say, and they relate and talk to the people in the rooms because they feel understood. And then when they go home they feel misunderstood. And that doesn't mean that the partner isn't understanding. But how can you possibly put your arms around a disease that you don't? But how can you possibly put your arms around a disease that you don't really know how they got there, how it works? And also, if you've heard this a million times, I bet if I gave you a dollar, you'd be a millionaire. But you know this idea if he really loved me or if he really loved my children, he would. Yeah.
Speaker 1:Absolutely. And what happens, I think, is the partner lags behind because they're not getting support right. So the person who's in recovery is, you know, learning all about their addiction and learning about you know what's underneath the addiction and I think that's important to say and the partner's not getting that kind of help, so they start lagging behind and the two of them do not connect.
Speaker 2:And when you say lagging behind, can you elaborate on that?
Speaker 1:They're not getting the same kind of education or emotional support that the person in treatment is getting, and sometimes the personal growth that's happening when somebody stops drinking.
Speaker 2:It's almost like they're growing up, and they're growing up fast, right. They're developing a relationship with their higher power and they're all what they call the pink cloud. When people are so joyful, they finally feel better and they finally have hope, right. And their poor partner is kind of like well, how do I know this time is going to work and what has really changed for me?
Speaker 1:A lot of dynamics there programs like Recovering Couples, for example, which I think is bigger in the US than it is in Canada, but it's growing here where couples can actually start doing something together in recovery right.
Speaker 1:And so one of the things that I did when I was the director one of the directors at the Donwood was I was in charge of a lot of programs there but I created a program for early sort of an early intervention program for couples where one or both of them were addicted and it was actually an intensive outpatient program where they came three nights a week to the treatment center together and they'd have a lot of things together and then some groups separately.
Speaker 1:And they did that for three months and then they were followed up for one weekly for a year and then every other week for the second year. And what happened was the recovery rates of those couples soared through the ceiling, way above the norm in recovery, and so much so that the Minister of Health came to see me and my staff and looked at what we were doing and they decided to fund the program and they made it retroactive to the beginning of the program. They gave us three years worth of money because the recovery. I knew back then what I know now is that you know couples who recover together stay together. I love that.
Speaker 2:Couples that recover together, stay together, and when you're talking about this recovery program and you named it, is that the Recovering Couples Omago Workshop, or is that something different?
Speaker 1:It's something different. It's actually a bona fide 12-step program. So it's like AA or NA or Al-Anon and it's called Recovering Couples. So yeah, it's in that. Yeah, and they go through the 12 steps together, right.
Speaker 2:Is that popular in the US at all? I've never heard of it.
Speaker 1:Yes, it is yeah.
Speaker 2:Wow. So if you're in a couplehood and one of you is in recovery, you may really want to Google that and find out more about it. I'd like to learn more about that.
Speaker 1:Yeah, yes, it's interesting. It's slow to catch on for some reason, but I think it's because we're so used to the individual paradigm. Let's look at each individual right. So omago does have a getting the love you want workshop for recovering couples. Myself and a team of people create it. You know it is, uh, the getting the love you want workshop. The regular one, um is, it's been amazing. It's been around since the early 90s, life-changing, game-changing, life-changing for sure, absolutely. The one for recovery is more geared towards recovery. It's called Recovering Our Connection, and we can look at addiction through the developmental lens. I do think that most addictions are the result of attachment issues.
Speaker 2:I agree.
Speaker 1:Yeah, and you know that. You know most of us, and this is the Imago belief. As you know, most of us come out of childhood with our parents having done the best they know how to do, but most of us didn't get some significant needs met that still need to be met today, Right, and that we need to get those needs met by our partner, by someone who reminds us of our parents and our unmet childhood needs, Right. And so I think that MAGO and recovery are like this Right.
Speaker 1:I think the recovery language and a MAGO language is very similar, right.
Speaker 2:I was very fortunate to have 12 steps and MAGO at the same time, which made all the difference in the world in my life, the interaction between the two, leaving me individual paradigm, the relational paradigm, but I absolutely attribute that combination to my long-term recovery.
Speaker 1:That's awesome. Yeah, they fit together hand in glove, right, they do. And that really an addiction is an attempt to shore up the needs that we didn't get met. You know, and I love Gabor Maté, dr Maté Gabor Maté he's a Canadian addictions doctor. I know, you know him and he is awesome. I mean, he just says don't ask why the addiction, ask what's the pain underneath. Yeah, right, yeah, what's the pain underneath and what purpose is the addiction serving? Yes, the thing that's so incredible is that the path to addiction works well to shore up what's missing. Right, it works well at the beginning. Tell us more about that. Well, I think that you know we come out of childhood with a lot of anxiety and dysregulation, right Then to chemically alter or you know some of the process addictions like eating, gambling or shopping. But surely that can't be an addiction, shopping.
Speaker 2:We need our own 12-step for that one, Morgan, but maybe we need to go now that's too fun.
Speaker 1:No, no, and so you know people. There are innumerable fillers that initially work well with anxiety.
Speaker 2:Yeah.
Speaker 1:Drugs right, or gambling, or eating or drinking? No, they work well at the beginning, but then, as it becomes a problem, they no longer work. Yes, no. So addiction, in my mind also, is an attempt to regulate oneself, to regulate that anxiety.
Speaker 2:Sometimes, in the layman's term, call that self-medicating right.
Speaker 1:Self-medicating, that's right. Yeah, absolutely.
Speaker 2:When you're feeling a lot of anxiety, do anything maybe to make it stop or not have the feelings that you have and to push them down with something or put them aside with something, because something outside of you is where you go, at least from my explanation of this is instead of reaching for the person and that attachment to someone that you trust because you haven't had a lot of experience with that the beverage or the drug or the gambling fills that place right.
Speaker 1:That's right, yeah, and so that people reach out to that instead of their personal relationships. And you know, I really last year I guess it was last year, maybe, I don't know, the years all go together but I guess it was Joe Hari who's, you know, a little bit controversial. He's, I think, from Europe, but he's got some really interesting things to say about addiction and the thing that helped me with my son was towards the end of his addiction career. We'll call it now he's a recovery coach. He's got a healthy career.
Speaker 2:Wow, that is amazing. So somebody seven years ago who was about to lose everything is a recovery coach.
Speaker 1:And others.
Speaker 2:It's so beautiful. I'm very proud of him. I know you must be. You must be so proud of him and maybe of yourself, because you stuck with it. You stuck with him, yeah.
Speaker 1:I did and it was challenging at times. I persevered that's the word I use a lot, right, and I kept, I used all my skills and still I went down the rabbit hole with him. It was hard not to. You know, I couldn't stand the fact that he wasn't eating and he looked terrible, he looked deathly ill and you know, just was very painful. But and I was tired, you know, frustrated, and I was reaching the end of my rope actually, and we sort of reached that at the same time, which was a blessing, right.
Speaker 1:But there was a little video that really helped me. It's a five-minute video and it's just got words, nobody's talking, and it's called the Root Cause of Addiction. And when I watched that video I realized that I was so hurt and so angry with him but I wasn't even talking to him nicely half the time. You know, the phone would ring and I'd be like, oh no, not now. And you know Scott was saying to me things like my husband was saying you realize, every time that phone rings you jump right and I said, yeah, I know, ambulance is going by and I think, is this it?
Speaker 1:You know it's not easy to live with someone who's suffering from addiction or to be involved in loving somebody. But that little video. At the end of it he says that the opposite of addiction is not sobriety, it's connection. How perfect. And when you think about that you know that really helped me and that really once, we need to treat people well. Even if they're using it doesn't mean we put up with it. Yeah, but we need to at least talk to them with respect and empathy and understanding.
Speaker 2:You know that this is an affliction you know and that helped me, that really helped me to realize that, you know, true, genuine connection is what heals and so you were in this desperate state and highly reactive, knowing that the next call could be it, that you were living in fear. And then you see this video, this five-minute video, and you realize that the opposite of addiction is connection. Yeah, on sobriety, it's connection. It's so wonderful when these light bulbs go on for us. You know they don't happen all the time, but, boy, when they do, we're so grateful. You have this epiphany, really. And then what did you do next? I mean, how did you shift everything in your world so that you could be healthier, to help him.
Speaker 1:Well, I certainly. I'm very blessed to have a lot of friends and family and support, although I did take a lot of heat from people that just said listen, you need to let him go. Let him go, kick him to the curb. I mean, I had people actually say that to me just kick him to the curb. How do you kick your kid to the curb, you know. So I had a lot of support for me, but I think when I watched that video I started talking to him differently. I was warmer, kinder, more understanding, but I still was. I still had my boundaries.
Speaker 1:And then, you know, he was just continuing down the rabbit hole and I finally one day I said to him I've had enough, I can't do this anymore. And I, you know, I texted him and I said I can't watch you die. You can't ask me to do that. I love you, I'll always love you, but you know what to do. I'd sent him to treatment twice. He'd been involved, sort of on the edges of 12-step programs, therapy, all of it. I said you know what to do and in the end I had to say to him don't contact me until you have your butt in a treatment bed.
Speaker 1:That was two o'clock on a Sunday afternoon and I was out with a close friend of mine and I was shopping for some workout clothes and I just happened upon a t-shirt had great, big, bold letters, like really big letters. It said blessing right across the front of it and I thought I could use a blessing Honestly, I could, right, and so I said I'm buying that. I don't usually wear things that are like you know, big letters like that. But so that was at two o'clock in the afternoon. By six o'clock he was in a detour.
Speaker 2:I had chills all through my body, wow.
Speaker 1:Never looked back.
Speaker 2:That took a lot of courage. Someone might be listening to this who is struggling with addiction and God bless you. I really hope that you'll seek help because there is such a better way of life, but you don't know it when you're in the act of addiction, because that thing that you take is the only thing that you have to cope with, the things you don't want to deal with. So, in a way, how will I live? You know what will I do with my life? And then from the parent and it's so painful, as you describe what you went through with your son and you got that courage. You know really to say no more and I love you, but I'm letting it up to say no more and I love you, but I'm letting it up.
Speaker 1:And what he would say is you know, I didn't know that it was impacting my mother that much. I didn't know that she was starting to feel sick because of it. Right, interesting, yeah, the funny thing was that that blessing t-shirt right became quite significant because he went to one of his first NA meetings Narcotics Anonymous. Someone took a picture of him standing in front of a stained glass window in the church and he had his arms, like you know, open right, and it was a beautiful picture. I said, oh, I'd love to have that picture. It's gorgeous, right. So I met him for lunch a couple weeks later and he had it as a screensaver on his phone and I said that's great. What if you got written across your screen? He said, mom, it says blessed. I nearly fell off my chair. I mean, I'm funny that way, but he had no idea about my blessed t-shirt, right. So that became very significant and we both would tell you right now that we feel blessed.
Speaker 2:Yeah, you certainly are.
Speaker 1:Yeah, blessed, and I think that's possible for people. You know I'm on a mission to really open up the community to the power of relationship, the power of connection.
Speaker 2:And you know it's so interesting because so many people, as you said, in the 12-step community, have had such early wounding around attachment but then even throughout their life, because of that wounding, they've had a lot of unsuccessful relationships, people who have betrayed them, people who have taken advantage of them, and so even coming into a 12-step meeting and wondering are these people really this nice? Are these people really going to help me? Why are they doing that? What's their agenda? So much a trust to be built. But when you said how the opposite of diction is not variety but it's connection, I'm thinking about how the people in the 12-step community embrace the newcomer and how that initially, how that you know, that connection is certainly unfamiliar.
Speaker 1:but so I can breathe here, yeah, and they're treated with respect, and treated with respect and understanding, yeah, and I think that's true, and I think that 12 Steps have that. They know that the addiction needs to be replaced with community, and that's right. It's right on target. They just need to take it another step. Yes, taking another step to the relationship in addition to what's already happening.
Speaker 2:I think that people like you said going to Allen, I feel like they're taking that extra step. They're going to their meetings. They're going to their meetings but, as you said, this part that's really missing is helping that couple reconnect in a new way and build that trust back. In all of the things that can happen in couples work, especially when it's directed in the way that you're describing around this recovery time. Isn't there a statistic about how many couples break up after recovery? I know the divorce rate goes up.
Speaker 1:It's higher than the norm, and I think that's why there's so much damage. That's done during the addictive years, right, and then the relationship is not getting the attention it needs right, and they're relationship is not getting the attention it needs right, and they're going off in different directions, and then there's nothing left, you know, except disconnection and we don't know how to repair the relationship after the hurt.
Speaker 2:We all will hurt one another In the healthiest relationships we're going to do that right. But we as adults, most of us, don't know how to then repair the hurt, and so lots of hurts happen, and especially, as you said, after initial recovery. Then all of those hurts are wide open.
Speaker 1:Yeah, well, for sure you know. I like to say about childhood too that you know, it's not so much what happens to us in childhood, it's the lack of repair around what happened in childhood. It's the same in adult love relationships. Right, it's like it's not so much what's happened, but it's the lack of repair.
Speaker 2:Yeah. So, maureen, when you think about what you went through, what you learned, what do you say to our listeners? What do you tell the parent, the wife, the child of the addict? Where should they begin?
Speaker 1:That's a good question. Where should they begin? Right? And I guess the answer is to begin with themselves, to make sure that they reach out and get the support they need and to not give up. You know, keep trying.
Speaker 1:I do believe in the intervention process, whether that's an unofficial intervention, you know, where you keep trying to talk to the person about the drinking or using or behavior, and doing it from a vulnerable place, that this isn't just the problem of the person who's developing an addiction, right, it becomes a family problem. To reach out for supports, to take care of yourself, to try not to enable, which is hard. What I like to say on intervention is and I say it on every show love needs to have edges, otherwise it's just whooshy, right, so love has to have edges. What I realized with myself was that I had developed a pretty high tolerance for really inappropriate behavior, right, and that, one by one, I started setting boundaries. One night he wouldn't, he hurt himself and he wouldn't go to the hospital. I took care of his wound as every mother would, and then I did head injury routine on him all night you know.
Speaker 1:And I said to him I'm not doing that again. You know, I'm just going to call the ambulance and let them deal with. And I said to him I'm not doing that again. You know, I'm just going to call the ambulance and let them deal with you.
Speaker 2:I had to set boundaries, and with love, yeah, I think that's the hardest part of all. This is when you love someone and they're in an active addiction, eating disorder. When someone you love is going through that, you said to keep going, don't give up on the person you used. The word that you used was perseverance and setting boundaries, Like it's not one or the other, it's both right.
Speaker 1:Absolutely yeah, and I think the partner or the family member should not be put down because they love their addict and forgive me for using the word addict. They should not be put down because they love their addict, and forgive me for using the word addict. They should not be put down for that, because in my mind, it's love that's going to win out in the end. That through the haze, the person can see that you actually love me, because they don't love themselves. My son at the end did not love himself. He became unrecognizable to himself too. You know, those wounds run deep, right, and it's not personal and that's hard. That's hard, especially with things like sex addiction. I work a lot with people who are sexually acting out and their partners. That's tough and it takes time.
Speaker 2:How hard to not take that one personally right.
Speaker 1:Very hard not to take it personally right Very hard and I think, to reach out for therapy. It's like a model therapy, right?
Speaker 2:When you're saying reach out for therapy, I think it feels very important for us to highlight that. Not just any therapist. We're licensed social workers, we're licensed professional counselors, we're LMFTs. People have lots of letters, but you really want somebody who understands addiction and I think that going to someone who doesn't could even maybe do some damage unknowingly, but keep you in that individual paradigm and you take care of you and we don't take care of ourselves. But that separateness message is really an interesting one, but not very healing.
Speaker 1:No, I'd like to really support what you're saying. Traditionally, the thing to do would be to kick the addict out, get out. You know and that was certainly true with interventions it's like no someone has, and that was certainly true with interventions. It's like no someone has to want help before they can receive help. That's not true. I don't know too many people who develop an addiction who don't want help. They just don't know what to do. And if you said, they're so attached and bonded to whatever the addiction is, it's hard to leave it, and so sometimes we have to leave them to the help they need, and that's where something like an intervention comes into play, where it's done with love. I love you. I think you have a problem. Here's why and here's how your problem is impacting me, without shaming people.
Speaker 2:And so the person's already suffering from shame because they thought they could figure this out. They thought they could kick this thing themselves, and then when they can't, and they look around at what they've created.
Speaker 1:Yeah, it feels, amountable.
Speaker 2:If you're a parent or spouse of someone addicted, how do you avoid shaming? How does one make sure that they're really not going down that road? Because it would be easy to do? You want to lecture, you want to tell them how you could do better. You do this, you do that, but I mean we know it's ineffective. So how do they stay out of that cycle?
Speaker 1:Well, that is very, very challenging. I mean, you know, I mean I found myself doing that, so it's trying to find compassion. You know this, I believe it's a disease. It becomes a brain disease in my mind. I have friends who would disagree with that and they're trying to medicate their pain. So let's get at what the pain is all about. Let's try and help them find the help they need and to see it through the lens of nobody wakes up one day and says, okay, now I'm on the path to becoming an addict. We actually choose that for themselves, right, and that they need help and to have compassion around that, At the same time protecting yourself.
Speaker 2:And I think it's interesting when people relapse, there's so much then shame dealt out about their relapse. They have enough shame themselves, but if they could just look at it like I've told many people, you know, when someone has cancer and they have gone through treatment and they are in remission and they get cancer again, nobody is shaming them. They are bringing casseroles and loving them and saying we got you, we want to help in every way, and that doesn't happen with relapsing and addictions. It's really like shunned more aloneness, less connection, all the things that feed the addiction.
Speaker 1:Yeah, yeah, yeah, I think that's it. Is that more disconnection, more anxiety, more using whatever the person's using to try and regulate themselves, so that whole co-regulation factor right, that couples co-regulate each other. You know a?
Speaker 2:little bit more about that, because I don't think we've had that on our show and I think it's really important.
Speaker 1:Okay. So when there's disconnection, there's anxiety, right. Whenever there's disconnection, there's anxiety. And then that's where trying to regulate that anxiety is where people get into trouble with mood altering stuff. But couples actually co-regulate each other. So polyvagal theory right now is becoming a very big thing.
Speaker 1:You and I can actually regulate each other's anxiety by being in connection with one another Absolutely. And I know this from my husband, who was in ICU a number of years ago and was in an induced coma for over a week, which was a very unusual and horrible experience for him and for me. And I would be watching his vital signs, right, and I have a nursing background, so I know a little bit about what's going on there. And I'd be going, like you know, and I would just start rubbing his feet and talking to him and rubbing his head he likes to, he loves to be touched and have his feet rub his back and I could watch his vital signs, his anxiety level coming down. Even though he couldn't talk to me, right, he could hear me. And so couples regulate, we regulate each other.
Speaker 1:So I think you know one of the things in Imago is we are wired in our brain to connect. It's our human condition. We want to connect with each other, and when we're not connected, we're anxious. Yes, and then the solution to that is connection, yes, so trying to maintain the connection or regain the connection. Another way of looking at it, too, is we're wired to connect, we're wired to protect. I've never heard that before. I like it, you like it, I do. We're wired to connect, we're wired to protect.
Speaker 2:I really like that, yeah, and then that protection looks like defensiveness and anger and all kinds of things. When we're trying to protect ourselves from the hurt, we do all kinds of things to further the disconnection.
Speaker 1:No, it doesn't make sense, says it, but that is what we do.
Speaker 2:It is what we do until we can get really more conscious and intentional about really like what do I want and how do I get that? I asked in my office quite a bit Well, is that effective?
Speaker 1:You know this working yeah.
Speaker 2:You know, if it's effective, then I mean, I really am no one to tell you to stop it, but if it's ineffective, let's find something different to try, let's experiment with something new. And yeah, that protection part really doesn't show our best highest selves.
Speaker 1:No for sure it really doesn't. You best highest selves? No for sure it really doesn't. You know? Yeah, it really doesn't. Yeah, you mentioned Gabor Maté. He's written several books, but his most famous book on addiction is In the Realm of Hungry Ghosts, where you know he is a true Canadian hero.
Speaker 1:I mean, he took a lot of flack because he started safe injection sites in Vancouver and I don't know if you know, but Vancouver has the worst drug problem in all of Canada. You know, when you drive down one of the main streets in Vancouver and you see blocks and blocks and blocks of people injecting hundreds of them, you know his idea was let's protect them, hundreds of them. You know his idea was let's protect them, let's bring them in, let's treat them with compassion, let's have safe injection sites where we can monitor what they're doing. And there have been less deaths that way. Right, he took a lot of flack for that, but what he has is compassion, that we need to have compassion. It's like I love your analogy of the person with cancer. We don't shame somebody because they have a remission. And, frankly, tom and Ann Martin, who are Imago therapists and workshop presenters I quote them a lot which is they say that all relapses are relationally based.
Speaker 2:Interesting.
Speaker 1:So if things are not going well at home or if people have a relapse, I'll say, well, what's going on? And you'll find the disconnection is there. And so a MAGA was about connecting people in the space between creating safety and vulnerability and connection, so that both people can be seen, heard and valued right.
Speaker 2:Yeah, so you're making me think we have to get a workshop online for recovering couples. It would be a good thing to do. I don't know if anybody's doing that right now, are they?
Speaker 1:No, I don't think so. You know, I don't think so.
Speaker 2:You know, Well, maureen, I am so grateful for the time you gave our listeners today. There's so many intimate conversations that are hard to have, and I hope that listening to our conversation will help someone today think about recovery differently, thinking about helping someone in their life that is addicted or struggling in any way, to maybe look this with a different lens. The word compassion is such an appropriate word for understanding Like if you could think like for a moment. They have cancer and it shifts the heart to a different place right, they're not doing this on purpose, right and they need help.
Speaker 1:They need love and understanding and they need edges at times, like I had with my son.
Speaker 2:Well, is there anything you want to close with that we haven't said today, maureen, because I've loved our time together.
Speaker 1:Yeah, I don't think so. I think just keep trying. If you have a loved one that's in trouble, keep trying. Let them know that they're loved, even though they're using. Let them know that you're not going to put up with inappropriate behavior, but you still love them. Keep trying.
Speaker 2:Keep trying, keep trying, persevere, and there are blessings in our lives that happen when we do, you know.
Speaker 1:Somebody said to me recently your son is a joy to be around, and it's true, he is, you know, and it's possible for people to get better. Yeah, it's sure, I'm living proof.
Speaker 2:You're living proof, you are indeed. Well, I'm lucky to have my Imago community and my dear sweet husband and my children and now grandchildren Beautiful big life. Well, thank you everyone for listening. Today, this was the Relationship Blueprint. Unlock your power of connection. And today, when we think about connection, I mean think about this whole recovery thing, staying connected and setting boundaries, just using your power, Because once you have knowledge, you can actually feel more power to connect in a way that maybe you didn't before. So thanks again, Maureen, and maybe you'll come back.
Speaker 1:I will for sure. Okay, all right, thanks for having me. Bye for now. Bye.
