If It’s Easier To Be Sober At A Meeting Than It Is At Home

If It’s Easier To Be Sober At A Meeting Than It Is At Home Consider A Shared Program Of Recovery Presented By: John & Elaine Leadem

A Shared Program of Recovery • It is a course that will be published in 2012 to be used independently by couples and professionally by therapists who are working to help heal relationships that have been shattered by addiction. • It is currently being offered through therapeutic intensives at our centers in NJ which you can learn more about on our website.

Case Presentation • Case drove the evolution of our model. • A heterosexual couple that met in the 12 Step recovery community and married. • Partners share a childhood history of parental alcoholism, abuse, neglect, and multiple personal addictions to substance, love and sex addiction.

A Model Defined “A Shared Program of Recovery is a model for sober living in which the partners in a romance share the responsibility to and enjoy benefits of each other’s hard work as well as their own efforts.”

Target Population • The couples that seek us out come from two groups. • Couples who have seen much more change in their individual personalities than they have in their relationship • Couples that find themselves engaged to be divorced because of repeated relapses or a growing inability to resolve conflict

Target Population • Most recently a third group is emerging: comprised of couples who are beginning a romance and would like to learn something from their respective past relationship problems and challenges.

Partner Prerequisites • The addicted member or members of the relationship need to have an established and stable abstinence and a plan for remaining that way prior to enrolling in a Shared Program of Recovery. • Each partner’s decision to participate in a Shared Program of Recovery must be one they reached without coercion.

Partner Prerequisites • The co-addicted member or members of the relationship must be willing to work toward the development of a clear definition of their co-addicted abstinence and a plan to remain that way. • Both members of the relationship must be willing to attend a 12 Step support group with the expectation of full participation.

Partner Prerequisites • Each partner must be willing to begin the development of support resources outside of the relationship. • Each partner needs to be committed to work through the 12 Steps in a style that is recordable, measureable, and reportable.

Partner Prerequisites • A commitment on the part of each partner to be IN Love requires an adherence to the core elements of being IN as well as any other conditions that the partners mutually agree upon.

Core Elements of Being IN • Each partner feels physically and emotionally safe with his or her partner and is willing to undertake vulnerable therapeutic communication and interactions both inside and outside of the therapy session.

Core Elements of Being IN • Both partners will obtain an informed and sustained consent before giving the other input about how he or she is assessing the other’s behavioral, emotional, and spiritual health.

Core Elements of Being IN • Each partner assumes the responsibility to provide the other with input regarding the physical, emotional, and spiritual quality of the other’s recovery and life provided that he or she feels emotionally safe and spiritually fit to do so. • Input needs to include the messenger’s personal experience, strength, and hope as it relates to the concerns being presented to the other partner.

Core Elements of Being IN • Each partner should look for daily opportunities to share personal insights, victories, and challenges that he or she experiences in recovery during a planned meeting with one’s partner.

A Daily Meditation Guide • Lessons we have learned from our journey have been developed into a daily meditation guide for recovering couples • Discounted order forms in back of the room

Core Elements of Being IN • Both partners need to be working toward including his or her partner as a key, but not exclusive, member of his or her recovery support group. • Both partners need to remain aware of the core tenets of a Shared Program of Recovery and be willing to work toward integrating them into his or her own personal recovery work.

Program Tenets There are nine core principles that underlie the therapeutic model used in a Shared Program of Recovery that are not intended to support any religious doctrine or political viewpoint.

Program Tenets • The whole of the relationship is greater than or less than the sum of its partners. • The relationship is a coalescence of the best and worst that each partner has to bring to the union. • The relationship can be stronger and/or weaker than either of the partners are on their own.

Program Tenets • The individual partners can be stronger or weaker because of their involvement in the relationship

Program Tenets • Healthy relationships are seldom 50/50. A sober relationship will often require that one partner give more than the other but it should not always be the same partner. • Avoid score keeping • Half way is sometimes not enough • Don’t miss a valuable opportunity to be of service to the one you love

Program Tenets • There will be NO secrets between the therapist and individual partners unless the secrets are to be included in a purposeful shared disclosure process for which a date has been set and both partners have agreed to temporarily postpone hearing the whole story.

Program Tenets • There will be no joint sessions if either partner is known to be actively engaged in romantic or sexual encounters outside of their union or in active relapse. • The partners need to share full responsibility for the tasks that the relationship generates or assumes. Each partner retains 100% of the responsibility for their individual and combined life tasks.

Program Tenets • Each partner retains 50% of the voting rights in all matters that could impact the relationship. • Neither partner has the right to determine what constitutes physical, emotional, or spiritual safety for his or her partner.

Program Tenets • The partners do not subscribe to the notion that relapse in addiction is an acceptable feature of the recovery process. • The partners in the relationship are comfortable with or are willing to work towards a model of emotional health that presumes that every adult and competent person is responsible for the emotional and spiritual quality of his/her own life.

Selecting the Right Therapist • The clinician has a personal history of sustained romantic fulfillment that grew stronger and deeper as it weathered life’s challenges. • If the clinician has suffered from addiction or co-addiction, then abstinence from his or her “drugs of choice” has been sustained for two years and the 12 Steps have been incorporated into his or her overall recovery plan.

Selecting the Right Therapist • The clinician has a working knowledge of the 12 Steps and 12 Traditions in order to assist the couple in implementing the principles of 12 Step recovery into their union and into the individual challenges that each of them face. • The clinician adheres to an abstinence model from the “drugs of choice” for both the addict and the co-addict and not merely a “harm reduction model.”

Selecting the Right Therapist • Therapist does not work from a mediator model in which all points of contention are up for negotiation or from the point of view that he or she should have any influence over the couple’s decision to remain united or that they should separate.

Selecting the Right Therapist • The clinician works from a therapeutic premise that relapse is not a usual or acceptable aspect of the recovery process but a predictable and avoidable dynamic of a relapse process.

Selecting the Right Therapist • The clinician promotes a model of health that supports that neither partner needs to endlessly tolerate ongoing relapse on the part of the other. • The clinician does not take the relationship into emotional material that the clinician himself or herself has an identification with and has avoided or has yet to address.

Selecting the Right Therapist • The clinician does not introduce interventions that he or she has not used successfully before or for which there has been no professional consultation or supervision. • The clinician takes on the responsibility for working with the relationship as a union regardless of who the identified client was at the start of therapy.

Selecting the Right Therapist • It will be a significant advantage for the clinician to have direct supervised experience in the treatment of addiction and co-addiction as well as being knowledgeable about therapeutic strategies for treating trauma victims.

Model’s Six Stages • Safety Plan • The development of a safety plan involves three task oriented elements that will help the partners create plans for the development and maintenance of physical, emotional, and spiritual safety in the relationship.

Model’s Six Stages • Sober Bond • The establishment of an emotional and spiritual bond between the partners that is forged through an agreement on a common set of values and compatible goals for personal and relational change.

Model’s Six Stages • Foundation for a Sober Romance • The formulation of a solid foundation for a sober romance includes three task oriented elements that generate plans for meeting their individual and mutual goals and preventing relapse.

Model’s Six Stages • Trusting Transparency • This stage involves three task oriented elements that are designed to promote and support honest, open, and intimate communication.

Model’s Six Stages • Climbing the 12 Steps to Freedom • There are four elements to this stage that include a variety of tasks designed to help the partners to develop a shared 12 Step experience.

Model’s Six Stages • Carrying the Message of Hope to Others • The sixth and last stage involves three tasks that will assist couples in the development of a strategy based plan for carrying their message of hope to those they love and other couples in need.

LCCS Publications • Clearing Away the Wreckage of the Past • A Task Oriented Guide for Completing Steps 4 through 7 • One in the Spirit • Meditation Course for Recovering Couples • See Back Table for Order Forms

Other Works By John & Elaine • Surveying the Wreckage: A Guide to the Fourth Step • Published by Gentle Path Press • Inspiration that will guide you through the challenges of the Fourth Step

If It’s Easier To Be Sober At A Meeting Than It Is At Home