Families Anonymous

And if you feel like you're having a lot of trouble doing that tonight, you're in the right place.

If you feel like you need more support, get to Al-Anon, get into Families Anonymous, get a 12-step program.

If you continue to need more support, book a session with Intervention On Call.

Get some professional help, and get a plan.

And to not visit would cost you something, right? But I mean, this is a pretty, this is a great question, and it deserves more attention than I might be able to give it.

I mean, this is one, honestly, where I would have a plan about the visit.

I would probably, if you don't have a sponsor in Al-Anon or Families Anonymous, this is a situation where I'd likely book an hour and say, "Hey, this is the circumstance." Because this sounds pretty serious.

And, um, we're going to this visit, and I think, because it sounds like with the question there's some clarity that we don't want to do what we've always done bec- because what we've always done has not worked, right? And so this is a situation, Sam, where I'd really punt it to an interventionist, which I am not.

Like, he, little by little he was able to work with him on that.

Um, my mom went to Families Anonymous, and she was very, like, educated about it, but my dad was...

Not until Charlie.

That's why I said, like, my father gave him his money to open up Transitions.

And I've seen family members do this over and over and over again, take on this idea that They need to make their loved one be okay so that they can feel okay, they can feel at peace.

And family recovery, like the fellowships of, say, Al-Anon or Smart Recovery Family and Friends, Families Anonymous, Parents of Addiction, Loved Ones, all these recovery fellowships by and for family members all point in the same direction, which is saying, I need to recognize that just as my loved one may be powerless over their desire to do self-destructive things, I'm powerless over their desire to do self-destructive things, but I may also be powerless over my own fear, guilt, and the idea that it's up to me to fix it.

And again, when I say powerless, it doesn't mean that there's nothing we can do.

It means that I'm powerless over this formulation in my mind, which is another way of saying, if I don't seek any kind of help and accept any kind of solution around it, I'll probably stay stuck in the same old patterns of trying to fix them so that I feel better.