Take Care.
See you next week,
Victoria x
Hi Everyone,
I hope you’ve all had a happy Christmas/holiday. If yours has been affected by living with a drug or alcohol user, let me ask you:
Want some help? Read on… (click on the links for more info)
The Vesta Approach supports families affected by a loved one’s substance use. I have created The Vesta Programme, a twelve-week therapeutic programme. It’s a programme that teaches ‘concerned others’ (that’s you!) how to change the environment to shape a loved one’s behaviour towards their substance use. In other words, you cannot change their substance use but you can influence it by making being sober or drug free more rewarding than alcohol and other drug use. You can motivate and unmotivated substance user to get treatment for their alcohol and other drug use.
The Vesta Programme aims to:
The Vesta Online Programme will be launched soon and is an amazing, unique and confidential service that people can access anywhere in the world. It’s based on an evidence based programme by Phil Harris.
When we look at the number one reason why people enter into a substance misuse service the biggest single factor is family pressure. Studies show that 80% of people sought help for drug and alcohol problems because of family pressure to do so. Families are a central force that drive change. Through working with people close to a drug or alcohol user, you are in a far better position to help them to change than many professionals! You just need to know how to do it. That’s where I come in.
As well as influencing your loved one to make changes to their substance use, the programme also works for the family members in other ways. After what might be years of battling with the loved one and the incredible toll this can take, it is a huge relief to share this with someone who is prepared to understand and not judge. It can help remind you of your own needs and sense of self after a long period of self-neglect.
I know, having worked with young people and families affected by substance use for a decade, how difficult it is to get out of the house and get support for yourself. It’s hard enough to admit you need help in the first place when you’re constantly looking after somebody else’s needs. That’s why I’ve taken this programme and developed it so that anyone living someone else’s drinking and other drug use can get the help they need to change their life.
I also offer my confidential programmes one to one via Skype, wherever my support is needed, and face to face in the Manchester (UK) area.
The Five Days Towards Family Recovery Programme is an introductory week-long programme. I’ve created this as my vision is to provide services and forge a community, helping as many families as possible live their lives fully and free from addiction. I realise that the Vesta Programme being twelve weeks long is quite a commitment, so I wanted to give you the opportunity to gain some wonderful learning and strategies to take away with you from the week so that you can start putting yourself first. It will also give you the opportunity to see how I work and a taste of what the complete programme looks like.
If you complete Five Days Towards Family Recovery, you will:
Call or text me on 07984 837302, email me or join my Facebook page and message me
Contact me if you are interested. You can also request individual support from me.
When you complete the course, you will have access to a Facebook group where you will get ongoing support from others in the same situation as yourself and information and advice from me.
When living with a problem user, it is really difficult to get time for yourself. This is especially true if you have sought sanctuary from home life in work or other commitments. Vesta offers the flexibility, ease and convenience to give you the help you need at a time and place that is best for you. The added benefit is that you will be accessing an evidence based programme of support. That means it has been tried and has
The important thing I want you to remember is that you are not alone. For every problematic substance user in the country, five people are negatively affected. Living with a problematic drug or alcohol users is the country’s best kept secret. It is a not your fault that the loved one uses, but you can influence their use.
My service, The Vesta Approach, supports families affected by a loved one’s substance use. You can access confidential support from me wherever you are in the world. I will help you to get your loved one into treatment and lead a better life. I offer face to face sessions in the Manchester (UK) area. You can also get help via Skype and an online group therapeutic programme.
Follow me on Twitter and Facebook
Sign up to my mailing list here to keep up to date with Vesta news and get my free 10 Steps to Family Recovery download.
Take Care.
See you next week,
Victoria x
Last week, I focused on how to plan Christmas with a drug or alcohol user. I promised I would go into more detail about boundary setting this week. This is a crucial starting point for anyone who lives with a drug or alcohol user. Let’s get straight into it.
The Vesta Programme is based on 4 key principles:
Keep these in mind and if you can, memorise them or write them down, put them in the notes on your phone to refer to at tricky times. I cannot go through all the details here as it takes a full programme to explain but you can sign up to my Mailing list or my Facebook page for updates, information and advice here.
The reason you need to set boundaries is:
This will change your life. Why? Because regardless of whether your loved one chooses to continue drinking or not, you will start to gain the confidence to get on with your own life.
If you are living with a loved one’s drug or alcohol use, I can help you.
My service, The Vesta Approach, supports families affected by a loved one’s substance use. You can access confidential support from me wherever you are in the world. I will help you to get your loved one into treatment and lead a better life. I offer face to face sessions in the Manchester (UK) area. You can also get help via Skype and an online group therapeutic programme.
Follow me on Twitter and Facebook
I share lots of great information and advice on my Facebook page.
Sign up to my mailing list here to keep up to date with Vesta news and get my free 10 Steps to Family Recovery download.
Take Care.
See you next week,
Victoria x
With Christmas approaching fast and the assumption that every man and his dog are going to get ‘merry’ aka hammered throughout, we need to have a think about people who have problems with alcohol and other drugs. Not only that, we need to think about the people who are living with their problems. Planning Christmas now will help you to gain a bit more control over what’s going to happen,
These times of celebration are so connected with alcohol intake or substance use in our society, that it’s not only a massive trigger time for people in recovery or those currently having problems with substances, but for their families and friends also. Can you stop them using or drinking? No. Can you say what you will and wont accept in a caring manner? Yes.
(I’ll refer to drinking for the rest of the article but that’s just for ease! Include drugs in this too)
The best thing to do is have a conversation about what you will, and you won’t accept from your loved one’s drinking and what the consequences will be. Will this be a tough conversation to have? Yes. Will it cause conflict? Maybe, but you’re no doubt getting that anyway and this will be a baseline to what substance using behaviours you will accept, what you won’t and what the consequences may be.
I decided to ask a friend of mine about his thoughts on this as, although I have a great deal of experience in supporting families, he describes himself as an alcoholic and an addict for over 20 years and is now in recovery. He has more insight into what it’s like for a drinker or drug user at this time of year. This Christmas will be his second sober Christmas. Thomas says he hit his rock bottom (bear in mind that not everybody experiences this to change- see my previous blog on this here) but turned his life around and has set up his own hypnotherapy practice, specialising in addictions.
He suggests that to help a loved one who drinks or uses drugs over the Christmas period, we should:
Thanks so much to Thomas for contributing to this post. You can reach him on Facebook or you can check out his website at his fabulous Hypnotherapy service.
If you are living with a loved one’s drug or alcohol use, I can help you.
My service, The Vesta Approach, supports families affected by a loved one’s substance use. You can access confidential support from me wherever you are in the world. I will help you to get your loved one into treatment and lead a better life. I offer face to face sessions in the Manchester (UK) area. You can also get help via Skype and an online group therapeutic programme.
Follow me on Twitter and Facebook
I share lots of great information and advice on my Facebook page.
Sign up to my mailing list here to keep up to date with Vesta news and get my free 10 Steps to Family Recovery download.
Take Care.
See you next week,
Victoria x
In the substance misuse ‘world’ we talk about recovery all the time because this is what we and individuals using alcohol and other drug users mostly strive to achieve. The actual term means different things to different people and that is okay, because each person’s recovery journey is unique and individual to them. When you hear people say they are ‘in recovery’ this usually means that they are recovering from substance use (be careful, it can mean recovering from other things too!- like an operation).
I hate to tell you this, but there is no clear definition of recovery!
Recovery in the general sense is defined as, ‘a return to a normal state of health, mind, or strength’. Okay, so if we can define ‘normal’ then we might be onto something, but this implies there was a baseline ‘state of mind’ that we can aim to return to. What if there wasn’t? What if someone has always needed help and never quite got it? According to our National Drug Strategy,’ up to 70% of people in community substance misuse treatment also experience mental illness’. I’m not sure whether this is as a result of their substance use or that substance users have not been diagnosed or have self-medicated with their particular substance instead of getting treatment for their mental health. What I do know is that this figure is extremely high and suggests that people cannot get the help they need while using substances.
Does it help us not having a definition? Not really. We do need to have an idea of what it means so that we can support our loved one’s to achieve it!
The Substance Abuse and Mental Health Administration (SAMHSA) in the U.S.A. offers this definition:
“Recovery from alcohol and drug problems is a process of change through which an individual achieves abstinence and improved health, wellness and quality of life.”
This is a pretty good example of a definition.
There are a couple of points I would like to make.
1. Firstly, notice ‘abstinence‘ is stated here. This is the ultimate, but not the only, goal of recovery. Cutting down, having a bit at the weekend or any of those type of suggestions are more than likely going to be unsuccessful with problematic drug or alcohol users. an individual’s recovery journey is their own so abstinence cannot be forced on them.
Well, if substance use is a symptom of something else such as masking pain or other problems, or is down to genetics or environment, cutting down is not going to alleviate the cause. Substance use may be a symptom of one of these things, so, in order to address those problems, your loved one ideally needs to be sober. If they are not, then this work can still be undertaken providing their use is stable.
An example of this in my work has been with clients who have both substance misuse and mental health problems (this is called Dual Diagnosis). In order to support someone with mental health problems, they ideally need to be sober, so that an accurate assessment of their mental health can be made. If they are under the influence, then this is not always possible. Then, it’s a case of establishing whether the substance misuse has caused or increased mental health issues or that the substance user has been self-medicating with substances because of their mental health. Do you see what I mean?
Harm Reduction is an alternative way of supporting substance users who might not want to stop or reduce their use, but can learn to use safely. For example, injecting drug users can access needle exchanges for clean needles that reduces the risk of infection. Or, a drinker might slow down their pace, make sure they have eaten and have nothing planned the next day.
2. The second point is about ‘improved health, wellness and quality of life’. Giving up drugs or alcohol is not the end of a substance users journey and cannot be done in isolation. In fact, addiction is a chronic relapsing condition, which means that it is unlikely that your loved one will give up on their first attempt and not have a lapse or a relapse. Don’t despair at this though, because every attempt brings them closer to recovery.
We need people to help and support us, we need to address all areas of our lives such as relationships, home life, finances, physical, mental and emotional health, parenting, our ambitions and goals in life. This is called a holistic approach or supporting someone with their whole self. This doesn’t mean that you have to do all this work! This is your loved one’s journey.
It is important that you understand as a family member or friend that your loved one’s first step to recovery is being open to getting support and then, get treatment. Rehabs and other substance misuse services are well placed to undertake this work and will complete a full assessment with your loved one when they access treatment.
Recovery communities are often peer led support groups or communities which are led by people in recovery themselves. In these groups, people support each other by sharing their experiences of their own drug or alcohol use and can also help the community in which they live. Some of these communities are accessible online as well as face to face groups. There is so much variety of this type of support such as AA, NA or Smart Recovery so have a look and see what’s out there in your area and online. This type of support is fantastic following a period in rehab or detox. Some people attend them alongside treatment in their own community. Many people in recovery will continue to attend groups for ongoing support from people who have been through the same situation as themselves.
With all the information around addiction and recovery in mind. Why is it important to help families to recover too? I’ve worked as a drug and alcohol practitioner for over ten years. I started working in prisons with young offenders who were there because of drug or alcohol related crimes. I worked with some fantastic young men who had so much potential. Some never came back but many did. Why? Because they were going back to the same environment, the same family, the same problems, the same peers, and coming back to prison with the same issues I had supported them with the last time they visited.
Substance users must learn to maintain their changes and the recovery in the environment in which they live, particularly following rehab, as they often go away for treatment. Families are vital in supporting the recovery of a substance user, whoever they are and from whatever background. It is you who are spending most time with them and it is you that can influence their environment. Changing the environment is the thing that is going to influence your loved one to change. Please note that I am not implying that your are responsible for your loved one’s substance use. This responsibility lies with them, but you can influence their choices.
You need help too! It is you that is experiencing your loved one’s substance use as well as they. You need help to meet your own needs and to help you recover from your loved one’s choices. This will take time and I can show you how.
To summarise then, we know there is no clear definition of recovery. The recovery journey will bring different challenges and benefits to different people. What we do know is that it is about overcoming the symptoms and consequences of drug or alcohol use. The starting point is accepting help, then working on cleansing the body of a substance. This is where recovery begins. The next part of the process is to explore the reasons why an individual has been substances problematically and unpick these. These issues can then be worked with, hopefully resulting in long-term abstinence from substance use. We should expect lapses and possibly relapse as addiction is a chronic relapsing condition. We know that finding other alternatives to find pleasure works and also finding a sense of purpose in life can help to create a new life journey for loved one’s and their families.
We also know that very few people are successful in this journey alone.
Recovery, in my opinion, is where we feel comfortable in our own skin.
If you are living with a loved one’s drug or alcohol use, I can help you.
My service, The Vesta Approach, supports families affected by a loved one’s substance use. You can access confidential support from me wherever you are in the world. I will help you to get your loved one into treatment and lead a better life. I offer face to face sessions in the Manchester (UK) area. You can also get help via Skype and an online group therapeutic programme.
Follow me on Twitter and Facebook
I share lots of great information and advice on my Facebook page.
Sign up to my mailing list here to keep up to date with Vesta news and get my free 10 Steps to Family Recovery download.
Take Care.
See you next week,
Victoria x