Prepare to Meet
No matter what situation or chaos you're dealing with, it usually goes one of two ways. It gets worse, or it gets better. Odds are that if you do nothing, your loved one's behavior will continue to worsen, not stay the same or repair on its own. Addictive and mental health conditions are most often progressive. They get worse. Most addictions, for example, are primary, chronic, progressive, and often fatal.
Although you care deeply about a loved one who is hurting or in the midst of chaos brought on by some behavior, you think you can do little to help them change. "I have to let them hit bottom!" or "They have to want to change..." are two myths that keep help and hope stuck.
An often cited study of families with an addicted loved one in their midst, tells us that on average, it takes nine years for a group of loved ones to build consensus to speak up and try to usher in change.
Our reluctance to act brings to mind the story of the frog in the saucepan. A frog jumps into a pot of boiling water and it jumps right back out. It feels the heat, responds to the danger, and instinctively knows: JUMP or DIE. If you drop the same live frog into a pot of cool water, it will stay right in the pot as long as the water is comfortable; even as the stove is lit, and the temperature begins to rise. The frog will sit still and allow himself to be boiled to death. The poor critter accommodates to the gradually changing environment and fails to realize the water has become dangerously hot.
This is surely a distressing situation for the frog but you'll worry about him less when you consider the fact that this happens to us in much the same way. It is a seemingly harmless pattern at first, then bit by bit we accept greater and greater compromises until it becomes the easy way, the natural way, the comfortable and known way to live. We lull ourselves into believing the stories that come from the chaos and crisis:
If we are lucky enough to be jarred awake, we realize, "Gosh, it's getting hot in here!" Indeed when we take a good look, we find that we are in uncomfortably hot water up to our chins. Unfortunately, you can't simply drift out of this predicament the same way you drifted into it. You've got to row hard, or better yet, rev up the motor.
Change requires action and determination.
That's what we've begun now: CHANGE BEGINS
Although you care deeply about a loved one who is hurting or in the midst of chaos brought on by some behavior, you think you can do little to help them change. "I have to let them hit bottom!" or "They have to want to change..." are two myths that keep help and hope stuck.
An often cited study of families with an addicted loved one in their midst, tells us that on average, it takes nine years for a group of loved ones to build consensus to speak up and try to usher in change.
Our reluctance to act brings to mind the story of the frog in the saucepan. A frog jumps into a pot of boiling water and it jumps right back out. It feels the heat, responds to the danger, and instinctively knows: JUMP or DIE. If you drop the same live frog into a pot of cool water, it will stay right in the pot as long as the water is comfortable; even as the stove is lit, and the temperature begins to rise. The frog will sit still and allow himself to be boiled to death. The poor critter accommodates to the gradually changing environment and fails to realize the water has become dangerously hot.
This is surely a distressing situation for the frog but you'll worry about him less when you consider the fact that this happens to us in much the same way. It is a seemingly harmless pattern at first, then bit by bit we accept greater and greater compromises until it becomes the easy way, the natural way, the comfortable and known way to live. We lull ourselves into believing the stories that come from the chaos and crisis:
- He's ok. It's been better the past three days.
- She made it to work every day last month.
- He told me the doctor prescribed it and he's taking it as prescribed.
- She didn't really mean it.
If we are lucky enough to be jarred awake, we realize, "Gosh, it's getting hot in here!" Indeed when we take a good look, we find that we are in uncomfortably hot water up to our chins. Unfortunately, you can't simply drift out of this predicament the same way you drifted into it. You've got to row hard, or better yet, rev up the motor.
Change requires action and determination.
That's what we've begun now: CHANGE BEGINS