One of the hardest things when a loved one is struggling with addiction is the question: what can I do? Jeff and Debra Jay are the people you need to know. They have been at the forefront of intervention and family recovery for decades and are the calm clear-eyed and deeply experienced voices someone needs to hear when they're at their wits end.
It’s a familiar, but true, saying: recovery is about breaking cycles.
Jeff and Debra Jay know this better than most. Together, they’ve been doing pioneering work in the areas of family recovery and intervention for decades.
Their book, Love First is the essential work on the family recovery dynamic. It’s now in its third printing and it’s a powerful roadmap for harnessing the power of family and friends to help a loved one accept treatment.
Debra’s book, It Takes a Family, is a ground-breaking introduction to Structured Family Recovery®. In it, she demonstrates the interconnectedness of addiction inside a family structure, and provides mountains of good news and hope - both for the person who is suffering - and the people around them.
Jeff and Debra Jay also happen to be married - and they’ve made the family health and recovery their life’s work. This is one of those episodes that NEEDS to be shared with the people you know who are at their wits end. Jeff and Debra are the real deal and we’re so glad to welcome them to Tell Me Something True.
Resources:
Love First - Jeff & Debra Jay’s site
Books by Jeff & Debra Jay (with several free samples to download and share)
If you care about these kinds of conversations, we hope you’ll become a TMST Plus member.
Episode link: https://www.tmstpod.com/episodes/61-jeff-and-debra-jay-on-intervention-and-family-recovery
Spotify playlist for this episode:
Here’s the transcript:
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TMST Jeff & Debra Jay final
[00:00:00] Laura McKowen: Hey, it's Laura. Welcome to TMS T so it's a familiar saying when we talk about recovery, but it's true. Recovery is all about breaking cycles. And what we don't usually acknowledge is that the cycle belongs to the whole family, not just the individual. So this week's guests, Jeff and Deborah Jay know this better than anyone together.
[00:00:28] They've been doing pioneering work in the areas of family, recovery and intervention for decades. Their book love first is the essential work on the family recovery dynamic. It is now in it's third printing, and it's a really powerful roadmap for gathering the power of family and friends to help a loved one accept treatment and recover.
[00:00:52] Deborah's book. It takes a family is a groundbreaking introduction to structured family recovery. And in it, [00:01:00] she demonstrates the interconnectedness of addiction inside a family structure and provides mountains of good news and hope, which we so desperately need. Both for the person who is suffering and all the people around them.
[00:01:15] The Jays also happen to be married and they've made the family health and recovery. Their life's work. This is one of those episodes. I'm so thrilled to bring you because I've never had a great answer to how do I help a loved one beyond my own experience. I've never had a solid resource to send them a place to go.
[00:01:36] And this is that. So this is one of those episodes that needs to be shared with the people, you know, who are at their wits end. Jeff and Deborah are the real deal. And we are so glad to welcome them to TMS T. If you care about these kinds of conversations, I hope you'll become a TMS T plus member. The paid members are the engine behind this project.
[00:01:59] The membership [00:02:00] helps us pay for the costs of making the show and keeping it coming your way. You can find the link in the show notes or head over to TMS tpo.com five, 10 or 20 bucks a month. Makes a huge difference. And thank you to the hundreds of folks who have become TMS D plus members. You are making it possible for us to bring you this conversation.
[00:02:26] Enjoy.
[00:02:38] Hi, Jeff and Deborah. Welcome. So happy to have
[00:02:41] Debra Jay: you. it's so nice to be here.
[00:02:43] Jeff Jay: Thank you. Yeah. Thank you. Thank you for having us.
[00:02:46] Laura McKowen: So I wanna start in kind of an obvious place. Um, that's really important, cuz I want people to be related to each of you and understand how you work together, uh, as a couple to on intervention and family dynamics of [00:03:00] addiction.
[00:03:00] So who focuses on which aspect?
[00:03:04] Debra Jay: Well, we're kind of a team. Yes, we really are. And we used to both focus on, you know, uh, the family and how they can help the addict. Get into treatment right
[00:03:17] Jeff Jay: on the intervention side. But now Deborah has branched out further and developed something called structured family recovery, which really takes the whole family as well as the addicted person into long term stable recovery.
[00:03:30] Debra Jay: So in doing this now after years of kind of working together on the intervention side, we sort of have separate jobs, but you know, it always crosses over. Sure. You know, cuz it's all part of the same picture.
[00:03:43] Laura McKowen: That's right. How did you hone in on doing this,
[00:03:46] Jeff Jay: this work? So it was way back when we both met, when we were working as counselors at, uh, for Hazeldon at Hanley Hazeldon in west Palm beach.
[00:03:56] Yeah. We were a staff romance. Oh and uh [00:04:00] yes. Right. And after we were married, you know, I'm an intervention story myself. That's how I got into recovery. And um, we really realized that intervention at that time, the early 1990s. was terribly underutilized, not understood. And hadn't been manualized at all. We
[00:04:19] Debra Jay: have to understand it.
[00:04:20] Wasn't a household term yet. You know, we, weren't talking about interventions for everything. People weren't talking about intervention. If you said intervention, you know, no light would come on in anybody's head. They weren't accustomed to that. And even when I started working for Hazelden and I had a family member at the time I was concerned about, and I started asking, what can I do as a family?
[00:04:40] No one had an answer for me. These were Hazelden people in those days. There were so few people who did this really. So, I mean a handful. If you're looking at people who did it nationally, you're talking about a handful. Wow. But you know, Jeff and I. Working, you know, when you work, you know, as we used to say in, in the trenches trenches, [00:05:00] that's what I'm trying to think of in the trenches with alcoholic and addicts, you get to know this disease in a way, you know, with an inpatient program, day in, day out, you see this disease operating, you know, even if you've seen a Jeffson recovery, I'm on the family side in recovery, you see it.
[00:05:17] And one day we just had an epiphany. We were home mm-hmm we were married, we were home and we had this epiphany and we said, you know, the big missing link in our field is the family. Mm-hmm , you know, it's all starts with the family, right? Everybody's a counterpart, everybody's a partner in this disease.
[00:05:35] Everybody is affected. It just affects people differently. And we have to learn how to leverage that. And that's what launched us in this whole direction. This whole, everything that we've done since came from. Yeah, we, that one moment we really
[00:05:49] Jeff Jay: took the. idea that when the family's in crisis, you've gotta take the focus off the alcoholic mm-hmm and put it on the family and friends and figure out how are we gonna [00:06:00] organize?
[00:06:00] How are we gonna come together? How are we gonna use the power of love and concern in a very specific and organized way? So we can break through that, you know, the normal defenses in denial, and sure, bring the person to a moment of clarity where they will accept
[00:06:15] Debra Jay: hub. And you know, you still hear it today.
[00:06:18] Don't you, you know, Alcoholic snacks don't want help. They don't want help. But what I like to say is alcoholics and addicts can't want help. It's the nature of the disease. They cannot want help, but there is a real person way down deep. And that person will often say, you know, after they get over everything, , they'll often say, you know, I have so much gratitude cuz they did for me, what I couldn't do for myself.
[00:06:47] Yeah.
[00:06:48] Laura McKowen: Will you say more about they can't want help?
[00:06:52] Debra Jay: Yeah. I mean, that's the thing, this is a disease. The way it affects the brain, this is a disease that won't [00:07:00] let the victim reach out for help, but not only won't let them reach out for help. It, it causes them to push help away. Right. You know, and there is this inability to see things in the way everybody else can see them.
[00:07:16] And that drives the families. Crazy. Yeah. Cause they can't figure out what's going on. Cause what,
[00:07:22] Jeff Jay: like when I was drinking and drugging, that's my solution, ergo. It can't be the problem.
[00:07:28] Debra Jay: Right. Totally. So when families are talking about the problem, you're talking about their solution, who's the problem. The family is the problem to the addict.
[00:07:36] That's right, right. Yeah. We're talking about the alcohol. We're trying to get in the way of the alcohol or the drug, which is a lifeline mm-hmm so we become their problem. We don't understand that, you know, we live it, but we don't really understand it because it seems so obvious. Oh yeah. It's the bottle.
[00:07:51] It's the pill. It's the powder, you know, and, and the addict doesn't see that they don't see that.
[00:07:58] Laura McKowen: So I wanna get [00:08:00] something out on the table. That, that is a, I don't wanna say it's a sticking, it's not a sticking point, but it's like a, a strong preference for me. And it has been since. got sober and it's the, the labels out addict and alcoholic.
[00:08:15] And I know like you need something to say to, to, to say this is the person who's struggling. Right. But I, I personally find because of the cultural stigma around what it means to have an addiction, especially a substance that, you know, use addiction, substance problem. There's just, it sounds so punitive to me.
[00:08:40] Jeff Jay: Well, let, let me say a couple things about that and I know Deborah will want to too. Sure. Yeah, please. Uh, I mean, first of all, alcoholic is a term that was, you know, brought up to break stigma because it was a medical term so now maybe we have to, you know, do we have to change in every, you know, and then the other, another point is this [00:09:00] is the way people in the real world talk about it.
[00:09:02] They say, you know, my brother's an alcoholic, my brother's an addict. So in our writing. We really want to use the language that people really were use. Now, these days, people wanna say, oh, let's change it to substance use disorder. That's, you know, a kinder, gentler, whatever it's like, is anybody actually fooled by that?
[00:09:22] Does anybody actually feel better about that? Because it's such an, uh, a mouthful it's really hard to say, well,
[00:09:29] Debra Jay: and I wanna say too, is that, and, and I get it. You know, there are a couple reasons we use this language when it's the language of the 12 step programs. So we want, when you change languages and you have two languages, you can have a real, you know, create a real barrier because there's a language crash understood.
[00:09:47] But one thing I talk about with stigma is there is a reason it's not, it's the behavior when people are addicted is not good. Typically, you know, [00:10:00] addicted people in your family. It cause a lot of pain and heartache and fear. And. I not changing the name. Isn't gonna change that experience. So what ends up happening is stigma always attaches itself to the word.
[00:10:16] So like when Jeff said alcoholic was originally designed for the same reason, and now here we are again. So we keep chasing words, but the stigma actually doesn't go away. It, um, might seem like it on the surface, but it does not, we would be much, much, much better. It would be much better to put our efforts into eliminating the stigma of getting help and of people talking about it in our families to be able to say, you know, we're suffering, you know, from Jeff's mother having dementia, we don't fear telling people she has dementia.
[00:10:49] You know what I mean? And if we, but there's,
[00:10:52] Laura McKowen: there's not, there's not the stigma around dementia that there is there and I'm not arguing with you. No, it's just something that comes. I, I had like [00:11:00] a, um, and I don't wanna split hairs or anything, but I think this is important because it's what you're saying.
[00:11:05] I, I completely get, and you need to use specific language. So you can actually say what you need to say. Like there's a, there's a practical necessity of just calling something, a label and consistently doing that. What you're saying, Deborah is so true. The behavior is we'll call it ugly and really, um, destructive.
[00:11:30] It causes a lot of destruction. That's why you have the jobs that you do. And there can be this sort of ongoing punitive sound about, oh, the addict in my family. Oh, that's the addict forever, you know? Yeah. I just, I see that keep a lot of people away from.
[00:11:52] Debra Jay: Looking one of the reasons that happens is because we've always excluded the family from the recovery process.
[00:11:58] And that's why the [00:12:00] book, it takes a family, um, structured family recovery completely changes that and it's super positive brain. So for instance, in a lot of family programs today, what they wanna do is they wanna put you in front of your family member. Have you tell your family member when you're everybody's in crisis and everybody has disturbed emotions.
[00:12:16] Addiction always causes disturbed emotions with the addict with everybody. You know, anger is rage. You know, fear is anxiety. I mean, everything is just blown up. Everybody's terrified everybody's held hostage and now we're gonna bring you and do a lot of negative brain stuff. And even the addict telling the family member, you know, when you do blank, I feel blank.
[00:12:35] What I need from you is blank. That can be really helpful in a healthy relationship. Jeff and I are. Both long time in 12 step programs with recovery, we don't have to set up boundaries around each other. We're trustworthy. If we have a little something, we can have a conversation, but when you sit in front of a family and you, and then the family is saying to the, the addict is saying to the family, who's gone through it with them.
[00:12:59] You know, when you do [00:13:00] this, the negative brain stuff is it speaks to what you're talking about, but it's just, like somebody said to me once, you know, be, you know, calling people unhoused, is that gonna make them. Become an other, because it's not homeless. You know, if we take it out of our field on the same hand hand at the same hand, I think anybody who is, um, suffering from this disease recovery, or otherwise they can use any word they want, you know, refer to me as this.
[00:13:28] And I
[00:13:28] Jeff Jay: actually think it's really important and I don't wanna go crazy on this, but I think it's really important to re normalize those terms, like alcoholic an addict, because you've gotta understand there is a big bias against 12 steps and AA and all that in the ivory tower and the research community and stuff like that.
[00:13:48] And they would really like to get rid of it if they could. And so part of that has to do with the nomenclature and saying, you know what, this is bad, but then what kind of disproves [00:14:00] that is that that means. Somehow AA is a self stigmatizing organization, which doesn't make any sense. Yeah, there are. It's it's
[00:14:07] Debra Jay: such an interesting question.
[00:14:09] We could spend the whole hour on it, but I just wanna say something, cuz Jeff said, you know, first of all, as a president and CEO of a treatment center said to me some years ago, I'm like, what's the whole thing with AA. He goes, well, nobody can make any money off of it, but for listeners, they should all know that the Cochran review collaborative, which is what the medical worlds uses.
[00:14:28] They are, it they're the top. When it comes to research, they did a huge meta-analysis of all the research, um, in the world, the best of it on addiction. Yeah. On what works and what does it on AA and it works better than any other treatment. And Harvard was involved. Stanford was involved. There's a great video on this, on YouTube called does AA work, I think.
[00:14:52] But what they found is it's better than. Cognitive behavioral therapy. It's better than motivational interviewing. It's better than [00:15:00] any other treatment for long term recovery. So the field has to kind of come back to that. If you know, they're truly gonna call themselves evidence based
[00:15:09] Laura McKowen: because of the work I do.
[00:15:10] I get so many messages, um, from family members and friends who are facing addiction in, in their families, parents who are concerned about their children kind of dominate those messages, I would say, but also, you know, partners, siblings, parents. So let's talk about some first principles. What, what do people need to understand about the family dynamic in addiction?
[00:15:37] Jeff Jay: The way we come at it is a little bit different than that. And that is to say to families, you have a great deal of power to change the situation. If you come together as a group with the right plan and you take the time to plan and prepare and actually deal with this, there can. So endless it's action first.
[00:15:56] Debra Jay: Yeah, there, there can, we don't try to change anyone's attitude [00:16:00] action first, right?
[00:16:00] Jeff Jay: Because there can be endless permutations about the dynamics of addiction in the family. I mean, you can go kind of endlessly around and around with that, but regardless of the dynamics, those who are closest to the addicted person, family members, friends, colleagues, et cetera, peers, um, if they will come together, get organized, really learn more and understand how they can take action.
[00:16:26] That's what makes the difference? Not trying to dissect what the individual. Uh, foibles in this family system might be, so
[00:16:35] Debra Jay: it's like we have developed, you know, like in the nineties, you know, and refined a process. And when you put that process in place with the family, you know, it's unbelievable, like start coming together, cuz everybody, you can imagine everybody's on a different page.
[00:16:52] Everyone has a different idea. You know, he just needs to grow up or you just don't understand him. You know, there are all sorts of things going on. The sister who talks to him all the [00:17:00] time, the sister who won't talk to him. And the thing about it is, is that it's in action. And I did a couple of boot camps with Stanford's behavior design lab.
[00:17:09] I mean, we put this in place way before, but really made me understand why it works because things that create lasting change, it's not changing people's attitudes. Setting up behavioral expectations and that will change attitudes, you know, keep it really simple, set up positive social norms. Um, and in this whole process, the thing is you use the family to do all of that and they come together and I will tell you something like, I always say, don't call families dysfunctional, that's wrong.
[00:17:37] And I learned that in my field and it's just dead wrong. They are in crisis. Any one of us in a similar crisis with limited resources as they have had will act exactly the same way they will blow your socks off any day of the week when you give them something meaningful to do. And it is, I have never gotten used to how amazing [00:18:00] families are and believe me, they understand what's meaningful and they understand what isn't and they're fed a lot of stuff that isn't.
[00:18:07] meaningful. And then they say, talk about some of that. Yeah. About some of that think it's, that's just that they know it doesn't help. 'em it's like, well, you're giving me a bunch of information. What do I do with it? I get home. I don't know what to do. Oh my gosh. He smells like alcohol. I don't know what to do.
[00:18:20] They understand it. And the thing about it is, is that also another thing in our field, they say, families just don't stick. I say, oh no, they just don't stick. Families just don't stick. They don't stick. They don't stay with the process. No, they're not sticking because they know this isn't going to do them any good.
[00:18:36] So Jeff and I are so focused on what works, what's practical, what the steps are. And, and the thing is how we preserve dignity, how we preserve a road back and was structured family recovery. Then we'd give them, cuz we'd always talk about it's important. What happens before treatment with the family during treatment and after only we never really had anything for after.
[00:18:55] Yeah. And now. This positive brain thing that brings people together so [00:19:00] fast. I, I, I, we did a podcast on the stories. It's just unbelievable how families and addict come together. It's just amazing. Explain
[00:19:10] Laura McKowen: what you mean by the positive. You mention it a few times, the positive. I know because I've lookeded into your books, but I want people to understand the positive brain stuff.
[00:19:19] Debra Jay: Yeah. Because first of all, you have to understand the brain tends to, um, skew negative because the brain's job is to keep us alive. Right. That's number one. Mm-hmm so the brain is always gonna remember what cave the bear lives in. Right? So anything negative, the brain lights up really, really brightly, and those are very durable memories, positive things.
[00:19:40] The brain doesn't light up. brightly and they can bleach out over time because they're not, they don't keep us alive necessarily. So the thing is, is that when neuroscientists tell us for every negative, you need five positives. And I'm thinking, they're talking about negatives that are a lot less negative than what families have [00:20:00] gone through with addiction, right?
[00:20:01] Like, so maybe for addiction, you need 10 positives or 20. I don't know what the number is. So, but the thing is we can't come together without kindness. If we're not kind to each other, if we're not engaging each other with positive brain positive things, I don't mean hallmark cards. We love our hallmark cards, but I don't mean that.
[00:20:23] I mean, meaningful stuff. That's super positive.
[00:20:27] Laura McKowen: Like give me an example of, of a, of what that might look like in an
[00:20:31] Debra Jay: interaction. Okay. So like this is a very structured program. It's really simple. So like families get together, but we
[00:20:37] Jeff Jay: should be talking about intervention, I think instead of, oh,
[00:20:40] Debra Jay: well, but just a minute.
[00:20:41] Let me just finish this. So the thing is there are a few things, there are different things they do, but one thing there's a topic every week and everybody just shares their thoughts about it. We're not. So like week four, for instance is forgiveness. We're not saying I forgive you. We don't expect people to do that.
[00:20:56] There are readings, little short readings, everyone reflects, [00:21:00] and it's all positive. It brings you into a positive place to think about this right throughout the whole year, it really follows the trajectory of 12 steps. All these positive brain topics, everyone shares. Everyone's listening to each other and it's more complicated than that, but it's constantly lighting.
[00:21:19] The brain positive brain. Oh my God. I can't believe what she said. I, one addict in treatment who joined the first time from treatment, cuz it's all done. A conference call, started crying her eyes out after she heard her dad talk. She goes never in my life. Have I heard my father talk this way? People get to this place, this, because he was saying kind things.
[00:21:40] Yeah, but it was just smart. He
[00:21:42] Jeff Jay: had, but he was reflecting on, on what, uh, what forgiveness meant to him. Right. And how it's applied in his life. What he's getting out of the reading, how that ties into step one and what he's experiencing, going to Alanon and stuff like that. And she's like,
[00:21:56] Debra Jay: wow. And he's only talking about himself.
[00:21:58] You see nobody's [00:22:00] talking. So all the talk is sort of self, self reference talking and then everybody learns from everybody else. At the end, people will. never in our family. Have we ever had an experience where we shared like that and everybody learns? No, it's not common. No. And everybody learns this active listening, cuz there's no crosstalk.
[00:22:18] So people aren't jumping in, uh, you're not allowed to talk about other people. You only talk about yourself and it starts creating you get the feeling, this structure, it's a common language. Cools down the system solution based type talking or like solution, since everybody's involved in their own recovery program, outside of it, their little assignments, they bring back like what they learn from a sponsor in a meeting, everyone hears it.
[00:22:43] Everything is positive, negative brain. We don't ignore. But you take that to your recovery program, your sponsor, your meetings. I see you. Don't take it to your family. Cuz what good is that gonna do? Why? So this isn't the therapy session. No therapy for everybody. There's no therapy. Yeah. Yeah. Zero therapy.
[00:22:58] I'm so glad you asked that [00:23:00] question. Zero therapy. Cuz what happens in therapy? Do we go to positive brain or we go to negative brain
[00:23:05] Jeff Jay: and, and it's, it's important to say though, that what Deborah's talking about is on the other side of treat after the intervention, after the person treatment, after everything.
[00:23:13] So we're like,
[00:23:14] Laura McKowen: right. Yeah. Let me reorient and, and get us to the intervention. So. You, as I understand Jeff, you at 26, you suffered, you were suffering you had this utterly debilitating physical symptoms and you were contemplating suicide. How did, how did intervention play a part in your story? And then maybe we can talk about the specifics of an
[00:23:38] Jeff Jay: intervention.
[00:23:39] Well, my addiction had take me down to a really low point. I mean, I was sleeping under bushes in the city parks out in California. I was homeless, penniless, bleeding, ulcer, bleeding, colon, transient neuropathy of the legs. I was just shot, you know, 26. And, um, a friend of mine had committed suicide and I thought [00:24:00] that's perfect.
[00:24:01] That is exactly the right idea. Sounds like a good idea. And I, I didn't tell anybody because I. Absolutely serious. It was, uh, kind of a very serendipitous or a miraculous, uh, uh, family intervention of an unusual kind, but a family intervention that got me into detox and ultimately into treatment and ultimately into recovery, because I didn't understand that I could get better.
[00:24:27] I really thought I was at the end of the road and there wasn't any point in trying to go further. So yeah, without that intervention, I don't believe I'd be sitting here today. And so that of course motivated me as, as I got further into the field and then ultimately met Deborah and were working together to say, you know what, there's a way to really bring this forward in a powerful way, which had not been done yet and, uh, make this more available and accessible to families.
[00:24:56] And so that's been our great passion.
[00:24:58] Debra Jay: And it has to be [00:25:00] more than just getting the person in treatment. You can do anything. You can like beat 'em over the head and drag them into treatment. Right? It has to be this whole process with the family that brings them together and starts this recovery process right from the intervention forward.
[00:25:13] So
[00:25:13] Laura McKowen: let's talk about that. What is your guidance on what circumstances constitute the need for an intervention? Sure.
[00:25:22] Jeff Jay: When a person is experiencing repeated negative consequences in their life as a result of their drinking or drugging or whatever, their compulsive process addiction is, whatever repeated negative consequences in any area of their life, relationship, financial legal medical da, da, da, da, and they just keep doing it anyway again, and again and again, with impunity that really demonstrates the loss of control.
[00:25:48] Secondly, yeah. If what they're doing. Is really a violation of their value system. Not mine, not yours, not somebody else's, but it's something that really violates who they are. [00:26:00] And everybody knows
[00:26:00] Debra Jay: it, like driving drunk with your kids in the car, for instance. Right.
[00:26:03] Jeff Jay: Right. Yeah. And, and so that is another thing that really tells you that there is loss of control, that person isn't driving the bus anymore.
[00:26:12] So that's when you might need to do a good structured family intervention and help them get treatment.
[00:26:18] Debra Jay: And you have to realize it's the families that are reaching out for help and they don't reach out when the problem is small. They don't even reach out when the problem is big, but not too big. They reach out when the problem has gotten so big that they're actually, you know, they're taken to their knees and they're terrified.
[00:26:35] They're terrified of losing this person. Nobody does an intervention because they don't love their addicted family member. You have to love that person very much. To do this. Mm-hmm yes.
[00:26:49] Laura McKowen: What are the requirements that the family has to be willing to commit in order to do this? Like what expectations do you set with them?
[00:26:57] Oh, that's
[00:26:57] Jeff Jay: such a good question because we really take it [00:27:00] step by step. So we don't ask people to make a commitment, to do an intervention on Jeff right now. Okay. What we really ask him to do is first of all, to learn more. If, if, for example, if I'm working with a family, Uh, professionally, first of all, I just want to gather them together these days.
[00:27:18] It's probably gonna be on. So someone
[00:27:19] Laura McKowen: calls someone, contacts, you, however
[00:27:21] Debra Jay: they call someone. You remember, you might be talking to the person, like, maybe it's like a type a personality. We've gotta do this right now, but we've gotta bring a group of people together. And everybody has a different idea, right?
[00:27:31] Yeah. Mm-hmm so the first thing you have to do is you have to get this group all on the same page and there's a science to it. And. But more, there's an art to it. Cause some people, people are angry, they're even angry. You're involved. They resent the fact you're in the room and that person has gotta be your BFF by the end of the day.
[00:27:51] Right. Right. And when they become BF,
[00:27:54] Jeff Jay: they're, they're, they're, they're all over the place. Some of them, you know, they really wanna save Jeff. Others just wanna shoot him. You know what I [00:28:00] mean? and then you're
[00:28:00] Debra Jay: also, you know, there might are over it. Right. And there might be somebody else who has an addiction in that group.
[00:28:05] But what I like to do be like, sometimes you can't do without 'em some, but you're, you know, it's a tight rope and you need somebody who skilled knows how to do assessments has clinical background, cuz it's complicated. So you're not causing more harm to the family than.
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[00:30:06] Laura McKowen: I don't, you don't need to gimme a number, but I want to make this like a, a reality for people who might actually need to do this. Yeah. What resources do they need to have? And, and is this something that needs to happen in real life, physically in the same room? Do you, does it sometimes happen
[00:30:22] Jeff Jay: virtually?
[00:30:24] So, first of all, for many families, not all families, they don't necessarily have to hire a professional interventionist. We wrote love first in such a way that people can read the book and follow the directions. We've also put four and a half hours of free podcasts on our, on our website intervention workshop.
[00:30:43] That'll so it's not a, it's not a money thing.
[00:30:46] Debra Jay: Put hand, endless, endless resources on our website for free. And we talk to
[00:30:49] Jeff Jay: anybody. What they do need need, need to do is at least have a core of people who care enough to come together, learn more and start to understand what possible strategies they can [00:31:00] bring to bear on this.
[00:31:01] Uh, situation. And so the idea is take it step by step. You don't have to, you know, eat the whole cow, right. Or just let's just hammer. So we
[00:31:10] Debra Jay: might start with a family with like a, what we call a strategy session. Let's just get all the pieces of puzzle on the table. Let's just strategize. What can you do?
[00:31:18] What are your resources? Sometimes they have to scrape resources together for treatment. We don't want 'em to use all the resources on intervention, right? So we have lots of strategies. Well, what can we do? Well, listen, read the book back to back. Cuz the book is a complete roadmap. Plus it cools down the system when they read it.
[00:31:35] You know, everybody's like, oh my God. Yes. Yes. So everybody starts coming together just because they read it. The chapters tend to be a page and a half, two pages, three pages. Cause everybody's in crisis. You don't have an attention span, two page chapters and it tends to read,
[00:31:52] Jeff Jay: it tends to stop that family argument of no, we should do this.
[00:31:55] No, we should do that. Right. It's like, no, we're gonna follow the book. We're gonna follow the directions. And [00:32:00] that's kind of the first step sometimes because people are arguing so much about what the heck are we gonna do with that crazy Jeffs? Yeah. They're
[00:32:05] Laura McKowen: just
[00:32:06] Debra Jay: in so much pain and they all it's kitchen table solutions.
[00:32:08] Everybody's got a different solution. And, but what feels right is usually wrong and what feels wrong is usually right. But the thing is if they can read a, let's say they have no money for an intervention. If they can get together, they can read the book. They can, I think you can get it on audible now.
[00:32:22] They'll know more than most doctors in this country, by the time they end reading the book of what to do. Yeah. And then they can do things like do a strategy session with us or, you know, any skilled, really, really skilled person. But. You can figure out what they need. Like what help can we give you? Is there somebody in your life, is there a clergy person that can come in and do this with you?
[00:32:41] That can, you know, how can we make it happen for people? Obviously, if you have the resources
[00:32:48] Jeff Jay: you're to hire a clinician, uh, clinical intervention,
[00:32:51] Debra Jay: that's great. Sure. It's better. And sometimes you have issues that are extraordinary and you need somebody, right? So trying [00:33:00] to just, just a mediator of something, you need a mediator, you need some kind of professional that's.
[00:33:04] I mean, if you've got a kid who's smoking so much pot and now they're in full blown psychosis, it's way too complicated, typically for families to handle on their own.
[00:33:13] Laura McKowen: Do you do you two still physically go do these. I understand that. I do, but is that true? You do. I do.
[00:33:19] Jeff Jay: Okay. Yeah. yeah. Wow. Which I love. I mean, I just, uh, it's a funny thing, but I love it when a family calls and they're in crisis and they think they've tried everything and they don't know what to do.
[00:33:32] It's very, very likely that I probably do know what to do. and so, yeah, it's a great joy to me, frankly, to be able to listen to them, really hear the story, get into it in depth and then start to lay out a strategy that they can follow.
[00:33:47] Debra Jay: And, you know, I wanna point out too. The other thing that's really important is when to tell people you should not be doing an intervention right now.
[00:33:53] Okay. So
[00:33:54] Laura McKowen: when
[00:33:55] Debra Jay: is that? I mean, you have an ex example recently where you had a family and you [00:34:00] said you're gonna have to wait. And they had to wait two months and the father was furious. Yeah. And when Jeff said it, you can't do this right now, right. There is circumstances. We're not gonna, we're not gonna be successful.
[00:34:11] Jeff Jay: Yeah. I mean, there, I mean, for changing names, places and everything else, but course they wanted to do the intervention on a 22 year young man who already had like two DUIs and almost thrown out college and you know, all these other consequences. And he was really falling apart. But the final, the last DUI had put him into a court ordered program, outpatient.
[00:34:38] And the father said, it's not gonna be enough. We already know that we need to do an intervention right now. I said, no. Why did I say no? Because he was graduating from college in six weeks. I'm not gonna take that away from him. If, even if we had done an intervention, he would've been so furious, he would've gotten nothing outta treatment.
[00:34:58] So we had [00:35:00] to put in a different timeframe and it was driving the parents nuts. Of
[00:35:03] Laura McKowen: course, they're terrified he's
[00:35:05] Jeff Jay: gonna die. And I, and they're like, can we, if he has a drink after graduation, can we do it? No, they're gonna be graduation parties. It's gonna happen. All right. Let's and so I set up these parameters and,
[00:35:17] Debra Jay: and let's remember he wasn't an outpatient program at the
[00:35:19] Jeff Jay: time.
[00:35:20] Right. And so ultimately we did the intervention. It was successfully went to treatment is doing great because you needed to wait. It just wasn't the right thing to
[00:35:30] Debra Jay: do. Or, or I'll give you another example. People will call and like their husband or their daughter or somebody they're in jail. Right. And they wanna give you their credit card.
[00:35:41] Let's do an intervention with the interventions happened. You know, we could work with you on an hourly basis. And, but the first thing you wanna do is say, I'll bail you out. Uh, But, but not, unless you're going to treatment, you're gonna go to treatment right away and we're gonna have the suitcase and we're going right from jail.
[00:35:55] Right. Jeff did an intervention in a jail once and the only place was the janitor's [00:36:00] closet. The sheriff put 'em all in the janitor's closet to do it, you know, at the jail, because she didn't care with the sheriff, with the sheriff. Yeah. You know? Wow. But the thing about it is, is that, um, you know, you wanna say, so the intervention is done.
[00:36:13] Let's leverage this, let's leverage it. It's a major negative consequence. This let's leverage it, but, but we can help you figure out what to do moving forward. Don't the jail was a negative consequence. The jail was. Yeah. And so we can help you move forward and if they don't go to treatment well, then we're in a different world.
[00:36:29] Again.
[00:36:30] Laura McKowen: I know I experienced several. bottom moments. Mm-hmm, each worse than the last mm-hmm . And there is, is there some true to this sort of window of opportunity when a person is in, you know, is in jail, for example, or has suffered a major consequence that, that, that is the
[00:36:47] Debra Jay: time it helps. Usually when the family calls, there are major consequences, it's just a given sure.
[00:36:52] Makes sense. Right. And sometimes it's a jumble of a lot of things. Um, what you don't want is for people to hit that bottom without a [00:37:00] bounce. Um, and that's always, you don't wanna be an alarmist, but you're walking that tight rope as well. Like this is, this is a deadly disease, you know, the thing about hitting bottom, like a lot of families get the advice.
[00:37:12] You just have to let 'em hit bottom bad
[00:37:14] Laura McKowen: advice. Yeah. Let's talk about that. The whole you're loving them to death. Bullshit.
[00:37:20] Debra Jay: Yeah, exactly. Because, and the other thing is nobody says, oh, by the way, the whole family hits bottom. With them, including the smallest children. Mm-hmm , you know, it's just not okay.
[00:37:29] But there are a lot of bottoms without a bounce there's jail, death, you know, really bad things happening to people and families. So to
[00:37:38] answer
[00:37:38] Jeff Jay: your question, I mean, it's nice if there's just been a huge consequence and then we do an intervention, it's definitely not necessary. One thing I do try to avoid because you know, people with addictive disorders will go on the wagon from time to time.
[00:37:53] Well, I don't want to do the intervention when they're on the wagon. Uh that's that's not a good moment because they'll be like, [00:38:00] Hey, this is great. Love you too. And uh, if you've done this a month ago, I would've been fine, but I'm doing great now. I'm doing
[00:38:05] Debra Jay: great. I got it under control.
[00:38:07] Laura McKowen: Yeah. Yeah. There's no urgency
[00:38:09] Debra Jay: there.
[00:38:09] Yeah, no. Cause in the addict's mind, you have to realize two things are always going on. Always, you know, is one is I have more time. I mean, you can be living in your car. You can be an attorney living in your car. I have more time and I'm still in control. That's what the addiction is always telling the person suffering from the disease.
[00:38:27] Laura McKowen: I have more time and I'm in
[00:38:29] Jeff Jay: control. Oh, right. Even, even as they've just come out of their, you know, sixth overdose where they actually died and they had to be brought back. They're still, you know, for the person who goes through that, they don't really experience anything
[00:38:41] Debra Jay: bad. Well, and what I like to tell families, so we have a very good friend who, uh, was a heroin addict.
[00:38:46] Who's got great years of recovery, but he said, you know, overdose, isn't bad for the heroin addict. It just feels like you're being immersed in a warm bath. You know, the traumas for the people reviving that,
[00:38:57] Laura McKowen: right? Like maybe, maybe it's a little unpleasant when you come [00:39:00] to and people are bad at you and you know, you've got the EMTs staring at you, but otherwise it's not as traumatic as it is for the
[00:39:07] Debra Jay: people around.
[00:39:08] Exactly. Exactly.
[00:39:10] Laura McKowen: Anything else you wanna mention about the intervention? Cause, I mean, uh, when I think of intervention, I think about the show,
[00:39:16] Debra Jay: right? Oh no, no, no, no. That's the, that's like, you know, somebody told me once addicts love to get high and watch that show. And I say yes, because that show has taught them a lot of bad behavior in interventions, you know?
[00:39:29] Like it used to be nobody ever walked out of an intervention most still don't
[00:39:33] Laura McKowen: it's also just so ex exploitive.
[00:39:36] Debra Jay: It's like, oh, and it's horribly, horribly. I, I I've watched it twice cuz I had to and I both times broke my heart. Really. Yeah. Um, but I, I just wanna say that thing about it is I wanna say to families, you know, the love first intervention, it is so loving, not.
[00:39:53] In a very it's in a very structured way. It's choreographed in a very specific way to be really effective. So [00:40:00] many people in recovery that have gone through this type of intervention, they save all the letters from the families. One person told us, and he must be, I don't know, 13 or 14 years sober. He said, I didn't even know.
[00:40:11] He said, yeah, was a love first intervention. He said, and when I have a down day, I pull out those letters still today and read them. And I think it's the only time in our lives. If you're lucky enough to go through an intervention where the people most important to you tell you in very specific terms, A good, a good how much they love you, how your best characteristics are so generous.
[00:40:36] You were there to help me or remember these funny times person after person. We don't do that in good
[00:40:41] Laura McKowen: times.
[00:40:42] Debra Jay: We don't do it in good times. I had a family after they did the intervention. They started doing that for people's birthdays. You know, my God
[00:40:51] Laura McKowen: and then they probably a little different they'd put the, maybe a little much, they, they didn't end
[00:40:55] Debra Jay: with, you know, it ended with cake not treatment, but then they would put right, right letters in like [00:41:00] photo albums and give it to
[00:41:01] Jeff Jay: them.
[00:41:01] So when do, when do I get the cake intervention? I want that one. I want
[00:41:05] Laura McKowen: the cake intervention, but I was, it's so funny cuz my reaction to, to this clearly says a lot about my own still issues. Even at eight years in recount, I just wanna cringe at the vulnerability and intimacy of, of the whole like scene,
[00:41:20] Jeff Jay: like oh yeah.
[00:41:21] It's, you know, it's a beautiful thing though, but it is very tough. I mean. In my addiction. Most people, you know, were very good at playing people off against each other and telling different stories to different people. So even as the intervention begins and all the most important people in your life are there, it's like, oh, I'm not gonna be able to play anybody off.
[00:41:43] Oh, they're all prepared. Oh, they're talking about also, you
[00:41:47] Laura McKowen: have to hear. Things that they, the, the things that they love about you when you feel so
[00:41:53] Jeff Jay: awful. Oh, I know it's, it's it's I mean, in a way it's killing with kindness, isn't it? Because we're talking about connection. [00:42:00] Why we love you, why we care about you times.
[00:42:02] We've been proud of you times that you've been there for us. I can barely take it. And then we move on from there to saying, you know, I've come to understand that this is a medical problem. Yeah. It's, it's not you, it's a medical problem requires professional treatment. I know you've got the problem because of a and B move on quickly from
[00:42:21] Debra Jay: that.
[00:42:21] You would never make these choices for yourself, right?
[00:42:23] Jeff Jay: I'm gonna, it's not who you are. Commitment to walk with. You. I'm gonna do my own, you know, family side recovery, you know, I'm uh, asking you to get this help. I'm, I'm showing this great picture of what life can be like. And then we go on to aunt Mary, and then you always
[00:42:39] Debra Jay: end too, but there's always.
[00:42:41] Reflection on the press this person has in the world, you know? So like when I would do interventions, it, you know, especially it was like a grown child. Um, invariably the mother would take me into a room to see the photographs here he is, you know, here he is. When he's graduating from high school [00:43:00] here, he is on his wedding day.
[00:43:01] Oh, here's this baby picture because what did she want me to know? I want you to know. Who this person is. I don't want you to just focus on the disease and we don't in, well, yeah,
[00:43:12] Laura McKowen: you wouldn't, but they're right. They're afraid
[00:43:15] Debra Jay: of that, but they're afraid of that. And, and they want you to know this is who we're saving.
[00:43:21] This is the wonderful person he is, or she is. Yeah. And the family is calling out the person they love instead of the disease. If you go to battle with the disease, it's, Jeff will always say the disease owns the brain. You have to go to the heart. Cuz the real person, that's where the
[00:43:39] Jeff Jay: battleground is. The battleground is right here.
[00:43:41] It's in the heart. The disease does own the brain and that's why we're going right to the heart. This isn't a negotiation or a logical thing. We're trying to call them back by the power of connection and the power of love to their more authentic self and let them, you know, take a break for a lot of people.
[00:43:58] I mean, this is [00:44:00] maybe counterintuitive, but for a lot of people. The intervention gives them permission to stop everything they're doing with work or school or all the things that are falling apart and just go check in somewhere. And they kind of need everybody to say, no, you can do this. We'll cover whatever it needs to be covered.
[00:44:19] Uh, because for a lot of people, they look at it and say, you know what? It might be great to go to treatment, but I there's no way I can do that.
[00:44:26] Debra Jay: Well, you know, when I was doing interventions, I would always have somebody like, at the end, the last letter say, you don't have to worry about anything. We've taken care of everything.
[00:44:36] How many days would we like somebody to say that to us? What if
[00:44:39] Laura McKowen: someone's hearing this? And they're thinking I need this. Yeah. But they don't, you know, they can't force people to do an intervention on them. What, what can they do as an
[00:44:48] Jeff Jay: individual? The answer, answer to the question is they've, you know, it depends on, do they have no resources?
[00:44:55] Do they have some resources? Do they, you know, whatever, because if you, if you need [00:45:00] treatment, like. You may know, I need to be medically detoxed. I'm not just gonna like walk into AA cuz I'm gonna croak. And uh, so they're going to, if they have no resources, then they're gonna use their state Medicaid.
[00:45:13] They're gonna call the number. They're gonna find out where they can go for free. If they've got some kind of insurance, you call the number on the back of a card, you find out where can I go? What's gonna be covered. If you have more resources than that. And you can kind of pick where you want to go and maybe you can private pay.
[00:45:28] Then you might call an interventionist or somebody else and get some recommendations and see where you want to go. So it's different depending on what your resource level is. But the point is sure that the help is pretty much immediately available and, and the first step, if you're the addicted person and you want help now you've gotta reach out.
[00:45:50] To somebody who's in a position to say, yes, you go here with your level of resources. And I
[00:45:56] Debra Jay: think it's really important for families to understand, get some help. People who really [00:46:00] know know on a national level what's out there. What's good. There's a lot of bad treatment out there. There are a lot of people a lot.
[00:46:07] Oh, there's a lot,
[00:46:08] Laura McKowen: a lot. So can you give some quick hits of like, not, this is good or this is bad, but, but places to go for the resources that someone that like a trusted sort of, uh, traffic cop to say, to point people in the right
[00:46:21] Jeff Jay: direction, that's a really hard question. Um, because there are so many, I I'll tell you where not to go is online.
[00:46:31] You know, if you Google and say, you know, I want to get help for addiction now you'll be served up eight ads and two organic links. And the organic links may be no good either.
[00:46:44] Debra Jay: You know, when, when people figured out they could make money off of. People with this disease, its terrible. And then they'll get you on.
[00:46:50] They'll go, oh, we're usually $50,000. But for you, we'll do it for only 35,000. So there are people that are just all about getting the money. The thing is talk to [00:47:00] people, you know, and our website, we list some treatment centers. We know low cost that are really good. Um, there are treatment centers that are low cost.
[00:47:08] Also have scholarship programs. If you don't have any money, talk to people who are really knowledgeable about what's out there, call a local treatment center. You may not be able to afford them, call a big name, like a Hazelden or a Karen or a origins or cause they'll help you they'll help you. Yeah, they know.
[00:47:29] Yeah. And if they don't know, they'll call people, call us. They text us.
[00:47:33] Laura McKowen: What's your website?
[00:47:35] Debra Jay: It's oh, okay. It's love first, all spelled out.net, N E love first.net, the resources, the free resources and videos and little audio snap trainings. We are dedicated to giving families tons of free information, and there are also, um, a starting place for treatment programs.
[00:47:59] Laura McKowen: Well, let's get dig [00:48:00] into the structured family recovery approach and, and the meetings that you talk about. Yeah. That you, you, you mentioned them, but
[00:48:08] Jeff Jay: so I, let me kick it off and then hand it to Deborah please. Because the thing that we're doing now, the new edition of love first, and the new addition of takes a family are now companion books.
[00:48:18] Okay. So when we, when we used to do interventions, we'd say we're bringing together an intervention team, right? No more. Now we're saying we're bringing together a recovery team because an intervention team team has, has an expiration date. Right? When we get Jeff into treatment, we're done. okay. It's over.
[00:48:37] So now we're putting together a recovery team and they go right from intervention to structured family recovery. And I'll let Deborah take it from there. Yeah.
[00:48:45] Laura McKowen: And smart one question about that. It what's the minimum number of people that need to be a part of this for it to be effective,
[00:48:54] Debra Jay: structured family recovery or intervention.
[00:48:56] Yeah. Like,
[00:48:57] Laura McKowen: like, can it just be the mom and a kid? Is that [00:49:00] enough?
[00:49:00] Debra Jay: We've done it. We would prefer to have, that would be hard. It would be, we've done it. I mean, we've done it successfully. We had, uh, a team once. Sometimes I'd say, you know, if there's only one person in your life, man, They're an important person.
[00:49:13] Yeah. And we have done that. We just had a, we just had a team like that recently finish a year and they had a really positive experience. We tend to say to people, you know, branch out a little bit. What about grandparents? I mean, we have found with structured family recovery when a grandparent or an aunt, people like that, just out, just, you know, extended family members.
[00:49:32] It's so powerful and beautiful. The team. That's five years. There's a dad. There's the mom, there're two uncles. There's a really, really good friend. And then there's a recovery in person. You know
[00:49:43] Laura McKowen: what amazing opportunity for a family. I mean, I'm just thinking of the, the, you know, a lot of times people's parents are addicted, so they can't be of help
[00:49:53] Debra Jay: to friends.
[00:49:54] Well, this is the thing. So let me just say this friend that I just [00:50:00] listed on the five year family, his family, he, the two of them met in treatment and his family would have nothing to do with recovery. Nothing. Got it. And got it. So when his family, the treatment center recommended structure, family recovery, they started doing it.
[00:50:13] He said, Hey, can I invite this friend from treatment? Mm-hmm . And that friend said, um, I actually have interview with this family in the book. So that friend said, wow, you know, after they've been doing it for so long, he said, this family I'm so close to them. And because it's conference call, I've never seen them in person, but I'm closer to them than my own family.
[00:50:35] Wow. So you can do interesting things like that, you know? And, um, um, the
[00:50:41] Jeff Jay: family's, whatever you call family too. Right. However you define isn't necessarily
[00:50:45] Debra Jay: traditionally define your biological family. Mm-hmm right. Um,
[00:50:49] Laura McKowen: okay. The dominant message given to people who love an addicted person, like we've talked about is step back and kind of let them.
[00:50:58] feel the natural consequences of their [00:51:00] behaviors, but you are taking a very different approach. Obviously. Can you walk us through the sort of action based approach and how you got there? You don't need to detail every step, but. maybe highlight some of the key things about it. People
[00:51:13] Debra Jay: do an intervention, the books are companion books now, and a defined differently, you know, where defined differently.
[00:51:19] It creates a different behavioral expectation, right? Mm-hmm I think it gives families all out of peace because they're terrified when their loved one's getting out of treatment. So usually we like to, we start the family right away and structured family recovery. The loved one joins when the clinical team decides it's appropriate and they join week three or.
[00:51:39] So that the family has a chance to be really comfortable with the process. The process is really simple, so I can just walk through it if you want. It's so simple, but it's so darn powerful and families love it. And the addicts love it even more. And I think it's because they're like, wow, I am not on the outside.
[00:51:56] I'm not the fish outta water. I'm not the black sheep I belong. I'm just [00:52:00] one of them. We're all equal. We're all accepted. We're all loving this. And they we're all trying for the same thing. They're all trying. When I worked in treatment, addicts would so often say to me, early on, how do I get my family to trust me again?
[00:52:13] This doesn't let me tell you, but guess what? The addict can also trust the family. right, because they're not trustworthy either. So anyway, in saying all that, it just starts out with some, we call an opening statements, expectations like you'd have in group therapy. Like, you know, because families don't know how to do this.
[00:52:30] That it's confidential. There's no crosstalk. We don't drop bombs. You know, red light yellow, like green light. If somebody drops bomb, you know, it's like, I think that's a red light issue means we don't talk about it. Right? So there are all these expectations that are red week in and week out. But the other thing it does is it tells people we're entering this sacred space.
[00:52:49] We're entering this a sacred space. There's a topic for the day. So somebody from the week before has been assigned to get a reading from a 12 step meditation book, like [00:53:00] courage to change from Alanon daily reflections from AA, something from the Hazelden collection, whatever it is on that topic. Mm-hmm now imagine that you're the family.
[00:53:09] Imagine you're the addict. Imagine it's your mom and they take it so seriously. They read every single reading on that topic before they choose. So now they have just gone through courage to change and read every single reading on forgiveness, for instance, or on acceptance or on honesty or whatever, the topics, every single reading before they choose the one for their family.
[00:53:33] And they choose just the right one. It matters so much talks about why did I choose this reading on honesty? Why did I choose it? And she shares everyone just listens. And then you go, Ron Robin's style. Everybody knows the order for the week. And when they read and you go Ron Robin's style, and then everybody shares on that reading that mom chose.
[00:53:56] Everybody listens to everybody. It's so simple. [00:54:00] Then we move into report, discuss plan. Everybody's like, what went well in your recovery last week? Right? What could be improved? Everyone's talking about themselves, you know? So there are these three questions. What are my goals for next week? And
[00:54:11] Laura McKowen: everyone considers themselves in recovery.
[00:54:14] Yes. So
[00:54:15] Debra Jay: everybody is, they have to, they it's part of the process you have to, to go to Alanon. You have to go to Alanon or family's anonymous or noon. If you're the family and today there's just so many great online zoom. Call, you know, you don't have to go out if you don't want to. The resources are so broad and wonderful.
[00:54:32] I, I go to Alanon meetings in Scotland and Tel Aviv, you know so, anyway. Yeah. Um, so re they love report, discuss plan. You, I, I thought in the beginning, I don't know if people are gonna go for this. Oh my gosh, you can't hardly get 'em to end report discuss plan, because they love to tell everybody what they're doing and their successes, and they love hearing it.
[00:54:50] And we have three second celebrations. We have a milestone like mom, oh, one family. I gotta tell you the story. Cause I love it. So the son is the recovering person, right? He's just been outta [00:55:00] treatment a few weeks and he says, report discuss plan. He goes, my mom is burning through the steps. I'm only on step two.
[00:55:09] So, you know, you get this like great, healthy competition. You know, mom is on step eight. I'm on step two. Oh my, I gotta get going. So you, you know, you've got this whole thing going, but when somebody gets to a milestone, like they got a sponsor. We have these great three second celebration and then the brain loves it.
[00:55:29] The brain loves. Yeah. And it's a three second thing, you know? And so yes, from there you go to these three groups of readings, learn something new. Somebody reads a paragraph, same thing. They reflect on it, then everybody else does. Then the second one is about a step generally mm-hmm . So let's say it's step three or whatever.
[00:55:49] Generally the reading they're all very intriguing to them. Then everybody shares again. Then somebody else reads the last one, which is working a program. Which is just kind of a general thing, you know, and [00:56:00] that's supportive, but engaging. And then they all share. And then at the end, there's a short little assignment, really super simple, which always brings them back to the recovery.
[00:56:11] Why we're going away someday your resources are out in the community. So you're gonna do this. You're gonna maybe talk about it in a meeting. Then next week report discuss plan. You bring back what you learn. Well, what's cool about this is everybody then benefits from the wisdom that they gained in their own recovery every single week from every single member in the group.
[00:56:30] And then how do we close? With the promises from the big book. So round Robin, so powerful. Can you imagine being the recovering person and hearing your dad and your mom and your grandmother and your brother, everybody reading the promises and at the end, you know, I mean the whole, you know, in uny unison, UN unisons, you know, when they do the whole thing, but we can week out the family shares the promises.
[00:56:58] It almost takes me [00:57:00] to tears every single week that I hear that mm-hmm so it's so simple. It's so simple. I always say it's so simple. Why didn't anyone think of this before?
[00:57:08] Laura McKowen: What I'm getting from this is such a more hopeful message then we usually feel or receive around the, about other around families in
[00:57:20] Debra Jay: general.
[00:57:21] I would just say to families that re regardless of what you think, you know, the end of the road, whatever you think the reality is, um, no matter. You know, disjointed, everything is just go to your library. You don't have to buy love first. You don't have to buy, it takes a family. Most libraries have it, although you want the newest editions, but they'll probably get it.
[00:57:44] I don't even, we don't even care. If you buy the book, go online to love first.net. I read the beginning of the books right there. You just have to listen to it. You don't even have to make that commitment. You don't have to make that big step. Just go to love first.net, right on the first page. Just listen to it.
[00:57:59] Yeah. You [00:58:00] know, it's free. Yeah, because the thing is, I think the worst thing for a family and I'm on the family end is that.
[00:58:10] you lose that person and that's the regret you can never get over. You know, you never wanna have to say at three in the morning, what if
[00:58:18] Jeff Jay: at least, you know, that you've done everything, but for most people, they are gonna be successful in getting their loved one help. And that's a great thing. They don't have to be captive to the myths of, you know, you have to let him hit bottom don't treatment.
[00:58:31] Won't work if he doesn't want it or anything like that. I mean, raise
[00:58:35] Debra Jay: the bottom to today, learn what you can learn, ask somebody else. Would you be willing just to listen to this on a website? Don't say, oh, let's do an intervention. Would you just be willing to learn, to listen to this and take that little step and, and, you know, pick the person that's most likely to say yes.
[00:58:51] So then the two of you ask the next person. Would you like to say just, would you listen to this? It's only gonna take you seven and a half minutes.
[00:58:58] Laura McKowen: A lot of times [00:59:00] there's so much resentment. Yeah. From family members. partners about this behavior. And like a lot of what I see is one person in a marriage gets sober.
[00:59:15] Mm-hmm the other one doesn't and needs to mm-hmm and there's just so much anger and resentment. And it's very, even though they know what they've been through and what it's like, you still think this isn't my problem. This is your problem. How do you, what's the message. How do you, how do you convince people or get them to see that it, it is the family's
[00:59:41] Debra Jay: problem.
[00:59:41] It's it's the reaction because there's no. There's no sense of a solution. So where do you go? If you don't know what to do, the only thing you are left with this isn't my problem, because no matter what anybody says, and it is a disease, but no matter what anybody says, it is difficult to be in a close relationship with an addict.
[00:59:59] So we [01:00:00] start moving away from them. And when we don't have any other problem, our brain just goes to, this is your problem. You know, if we don't have a solution, when you have a solution and you can start with these little teeny weeny steps, you know, so that we get past contempt prior to investigation, you know, do you have seven minutes?
[01:00:17] Right? Do you have seven minutes? You know, I mean, who can say no to seven minutes? Right? Right. And so make those little tiny steps because at the end of the day, like that resentment, you know, like they always say, it's like, you know, drinking poison and expecting the other person to die. You know, we can't live with that and it takes a huge toll.
[01:00:36] But the other thing to me, that's the most important is the future, the generations of the future. Because this disease is generational. My first editor at Hazelden, when we wrote the first edition of love, first, we were having coffee and he said, you know, Deborah, whatever pain we have in our life today, it's probably like 200 years old.
[01:00:56] And the best thing we can do in life is to end that pain with us. [01:01:00] And when it comes to addiction, it's more important than anything. We have to end that pain with us. We know. And if I can end with this, the children, especially who are living in a home with addiction that they're rapidly developing brains.
[01:01:16] Harvard, all the neuro resources research that's going on. We change the architecture of their brains. We change who they were meant to be. Mm-hmm um, and they say, now that'll affect you even your health throughout old age. And we, it cannot be the readiness of the addict. The family needs to move forward because a family needs to preserve itself and it especially needs to protect small children.
[01:01:48] Laura McKowen: I, I, I love that. And couldn't agree more. Thank you so much. Thank you. Really.
[01:01:52] Debra Jay: This has been a
[01:01:53] Jeff Jay: lot of fun. It's been great. Thank you.
[01:01:55] Laura McKowen: Good. Yeah. Yeah. You both are lovely and it's, this is gonna be so, so helpful. [01:02:00] I'm I'm so glad we're gonna have it out there as a place to point people.
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