Hi everybody, this is Kristin Maxwell and you are listening to Your SuperPowered Mind. Our guest today has a very interesting program called the Family Recovery Solution, which is an online program that enrolls the family to overcome addiction. Now, we’re going to be talking to Jeff Jones, who is an addiction counselor and a family recovery coach.
As I mentioned, he has created an unusual online family community it’s the familyrecoverysolution.com where families can have a community, and get support as one of the members of their family is dealing with addiction and addiction recovery. I’m excited to hear what Jeff has to say. Welcome to Your SuperPowered Mind.
Well, thank you Kristin. Thank you very much for having me on your show.
Mastering my mind means having a system or a resource to practice.
Yes, with the work you’re doing is incredibly important. My first question is always, what superpower did you uncover as a result of mastering your mind?
Great question. In mastering my own mind, one of the first things is, that my mind is important from the standpoint of thinking, but left to its own devices it can get pretty off track and feed me “fake news.” To me, mastering my mind means having a system or a resource to practice, to be able to discern this, what I call fake news from what is real for me, like my truth.
The superpower for me personally is, patience and acceptance and coupled with that is both and thinking. To be able to be aware of what’s happening in my head, what I’m calling fake news and actually be aware of another perspective perhaps.
That is a crucial superpower I would say. When you say you have patience and acceptance, what do you being in your patience and acceptance for the thoughts? For yourself? For the situation?
Great question. I think just automatically the person I am, it is easier for me to have patience and acceptance with others generally than myself. However, if I don’t have patience and acceptance for myself, then the patience and acceptance that I’m doing and being with others is probably more habitual than genuine.
Say more about that, what that means more habitual.
Well, I think some people can have a historic pattern of discounting themselves or their own perspective or their own opinion or their own feelings, and putting the perspective or feelings of others in front of them.
Got It. Thank you. It’s really interesting always to have these conversations about what our thoughts, what role they play in our lives. Because, I got to say until I started learning about what our thoughts were, I completely lived by what them. Without really acknowledging that I could maybe change what I was thinking or control it or discounted.
The one thing that I’m now working on now, which I love, that my coach just said to me this week, is to get comfortable with all the whole breadth of things. There is no right or wrong answer, I could be all of a number of things could be true for me.
I love that. When I was saying about your first question with super powers, it brings me around to something else. I know I could frame it as a superpower for myself, and that would be relentless curiosity about, one what’s true for me? But, also this curiosity about what are the different perspectives that are out there? As opposed to believing the first one that comes along or the first one that comes up in my mind. Let me tell you my mind can be pretty strong at times.
For me to be able to understand that there’s different perspective and to be curious about them. One of the things I did in past life or maybe 10 years ago or something was divorce mediation. With every conflict there’s always another side, and I learned to be curious when I was listening to one person about what the other side of that conflict will be like.
Wow. Yes. That would be definitely a place where you could get some two very different stories around this same situation. Go ahead.
Addiction in the family that happens all the time.
Right. One of the things that I really do want to start talking about what it is you do in the world because it’s super interesting. But, this is also a really helpful conversation because I do know that, when I really first started to get that I had a number of beliefs that were not helpful, that did not actually support who I wanted to be in the world, and how I wanted to think about the world, and to realize that I could actually try to … I could pick different beliefs.
At first when I first heard that, I thought that’s ridiculous because I had strong opinions, but it really is true. It’s not automatic, it’s not easy, but you really can. Thank you for opening this up. Actually now, I really want to know, tell us about the familyrecoverysolution.com
Families didn’t really understand what their role was in addiction.
This evolved over a three year period, and I’ll try to be very concise with the sequence, but several years ago I … After being a therapist and interventionists for a number of years. I saw over and over patterns that families didn’t really understand what their role was in addiction. Oftentimes, they would be using their same strategies as their loved one would go into some kind of treatment or start to become sober. That was a problem because the way they interacted with their loved one, if they did it in the same way. Those conditions, can contribute to creating an environment in the family that is hospitable to active addiction.
I saw that family members didn’t really understand their role, and then what I did is I created a three phase program. It recognizes resource, realize are the three different stages, and then I put the whole thing online about a year and a half ago and wrapped a very user friendly community around it. Meaning people can come in confidentially and get resources, they can … there’s two community in chats, they can connect with other people. It isn’t like all communication needs to go through me, but two hours a week I’m in a community chat and can engage with whoever wants to ask questions and engage.
Wednesday is where I come in with a topic, and then we can start a discussion and different people can talk about their experiences with it or ask questions. Someone who’s just listening early on and isn’t quite ready to engage in the conversation, they can send a private message to someone who it is and say, “Hey, I’d like to talk with you tomorrow at 8:00.” There’s six different chat rooms in the community. This isn’t like a Facebook group or something where everybody can see who everyone else is, this is an anonymous space.
Wow, that’s a great. I can’t wait to hear more because I’m really … I don’t know if there’s much awareness about how the way the family interacts, can help contribute with the power and maybe of addiction. We do have to take a break first, when we come back I want to go a little bit more and how you can enroll the family to overcome addiction, and help to give them some support. Before we go, can you tell listeners where they could find out more about your program?
Yes. My website is thefamilyrecoverysolution.com, and if they go to the section that says For Families, there’s a video at the top of the page that goes into some detail about the very first step of the recognized phase, which I call The Spotlight Diagram.
Wow, that’s great. When we come back, we’ll talk a little bit more about, enrolling the family to overcome addiction. Stay tuned.
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