Author: Melissa Killeen

[This is another in a series of posts about my interactions with recovery coaching clients. I want to share what happens during a recovery coaching engagement, the discussions that take place, what usually comes up for the client and how, as a recovery coach, I respond.]

Everyone working through recovery has lost, or severed a close tie or relationship. Some of these ties are critical, perhaps a mother or father, maybe a close friend, neighbor or colleague. My coaching client, having realized 90 days of clean time, says his relationship with his live-in girlfriend has been severely impacted by his latest relapse. He knows the relationship has changed. He feels she is distant and that she does not trust him. He wants the “old” relationship back.

Although my client attends 12-step meetings regularly, and has a sponsor, he is only now working on step one. The task of beginning to “repair” his relationship very much involves steps eight and nine but, of course, he has some distance to travel before reaching that point in his program. [Step 8: Made a list of all persons we had harmed, and became willing to make amends to them all. Step 9: Made direct amends to such people wherever possible, except when to do so would injure them or others]. Yet, as a coach, I cannot let the learning opportunity slip away. So I embrace his concerns and create a homework assignment. I ask him to pull out pen and paper, and then write down four topics:

1. You are my love
2. This is my action plan
3. I can embrace humility
4. Spirituality

I ask him to write approximately ten sentences on each of these topics. I go so far as to offer suggestions for each:

1. Profess his love for his girlfriend, embrace his inner Romeo. Tell her what he loves about her, applaud her positive traits, and affirm that he cannot live without her love. Go overboard, write fifteen sentences.

2. Create a plan of action, as we always hear recovery is a program of action. I invite him to embrace this credo by listing three things he is going to “do” for his love. One might be the writing of this letter, another, providing her something for which she’s wished or asked for. So during the next week he has to pay close attention to her smallest comment, her wishes, desires and requests, all the while taking notes, and taking action. It follows that the last thing might be the presentation of the letter he’s written and talking with her about it. Ask if she has any suggestions. I remind him that the definition of suggestion is subtle command!

3. If he truly wants to mend the relationship he will need to lay down his pride and ego. He’s got to do whatever it takes. I invite him to list what he has done wrong and apologize for it. This topic, as well as the others, need not focus only on the ramifications of his addiction. This step surely involves talking about the behavior that’s deeply impacted both of them. His behavior. And if he senses some stubbornness on her part, I suggest “embracing his hidden humility and seeing what it opens up for him.”

4. Finally, spirituality. This homework assignment will not work, unless my client asks for his Higher Power’s involvement. Every time he thinks about this homework assignment he has to ask his HP for help. If he finds this task difficult or near impossible, a prayer will help break through the barriers to accomplishing this task.

I will let you know the results in my next post.

[This is another in a series of posts about my interactions with recovery coaching clients. I want to share what happens during a recovery coaching engagement, the discussions that take place, what usually comes up for the client and how as a recovery coach I respond.]

“Men are from Mars and women are from Venus” is indeed an apt way to describe the differences between men and women. As a coach, I have watched that boundary slowly erode. In my previous post about my client with 45 days of clean time, I related how our last meeting was spent with him venting. I liken that session to a bunch of girlfriends sitting around the dinner table bitching about their spouses. Eventually, after all the venting dissipates, solutions arise. Or in the worst case, a lot of negative thoughts are brought into the open, to dry up in the light of day. And at least by venting, those issues tend not to torment one by coming out sideways at an inappropriate time. In much the same way, that session with my client likely opened up a new conversation on having a purpose (a purpose other than where to cop the next dime bag).

In the follow-up session my client began discussing a plaque hanging on his wall. It was one of those made of walnut and brass that you get at a trophy shop, with a bas-relief of a kid swinging a baseball bat. The plaque was given in recognition of his father’s 35 years as a supporter of Little League Baseball. Coincidentally, the inscription carried that day’s date, albeit for the year 2000. He mentioned his father was always his Little League coach. His dad coached his three older brothers, as well. As a teenager, my client later joined a traveling team, winning international competitions, while visiting Canada and Mexico. He said his father was the best coach, ever. (I smiled).

I looked for a common thread in my client’s successes. Who was involved? His Dad. Why was he happy? He had support, belonged to a team and he was winning. His emotions? He was elated, he felt recognized and on top of the world. He thrived as a teenager because of his involvement in baseball. When I asked him, “if you could choose to start all over again, what would you want in your next life?”

He said he would want to be a coach. Not a recovery coach, not an executive coach, but a baseball coach.

Making the most of this information, I observed aloud that when he was his happiest, most alive and thriving self, when he felt like he belonged and was recognized, he didn’t drink or drug. That he got what he needed externally. Well, he lit up like LED headlamps on a BMW! He went on to say that Spring is coming, and he was going to volunteer as a coach with Little League Baseball in his town. Moving immediately into action, he picked up the phone and dialed a friend of his father’s still active in Little League, asking for his advice and information on which teams needed coaches.

Finding purpose and giving our gifts is not about making money. It is about being happy, and sharing those gifts. 12-step programs advise that “service keeps you clean and sober,” and in my client’s case, service on the local baseball diamond is a start in the right direction.

As coaches, we can’t make our clients do anything they’re not willing to do, but we can create circumstances, environments, or conversations with the intention of inspiring our clients to feel they can achieve that which makes them happy.

I can hardly wait to see to which Little League team my client has been assigned.

[This is the fourth in a series of short posts about my interactions with recovery coaching clients. I want to share what happens during a recovery coaching engagement, the discussions that take place, what usually comes up for the client and how as a recovery coach I respond. In this post, I am still working with the client who relapsed.]

As discussed in my last few posts, I am working with a gentleman who relapsed some two months ago. At our last meeting, he and I discussed Medication Assisted Therapy (MAT). My client is considering using a specific medicine to aid him in his recovery. Appropriately, he mentioned this to his 12-step sponsor, and not surprisingly, the sponsor expressed his objection to MAT. The sponsor was adamant that my client not use drugs of any kind as a crutch for getting and staying clean. “No matter what, don’t pick up,” his sponsor warned, along with a litany of other 12-step slogans.

My client is affected by drugs, alcohol and a variety of processes or behavioral addictions. At the risk of discrediting any of the 12-step programs because of one person’s opinion, the following describes the impact that opinion had on my client.

In our meeting, he began to rant, spewing out the negative thoughts and feelings any addict holds against recovery, against 12-step programs, and for giving into his addiction. Giving up was number one on his list of negative talk. Even though there are statistics that show 12-step programs are credited for approximately 10% of the addict population getting clean, I could not allow my client to go down that path of giving up. Not with so little clean time under his belt. So what did I do?

Listened. I just listened. I could hear (and see) the emotional distress he was feeling. I knew this was no place for advice giving. And if I wanted to hear what he really had to say, I had to be quiet. I had to resist the voice in my head that was compiling good statistics on recovery. The general comments I could make to persuade him to feel and believe otherwise were best left unsaid. I had to block out all distractions, like his son upstairs playing Hip Hop music, and really concentrate on what he was telling me.

I chose to find greater value in observing this client, how he was sitting, leaning forward or pushing back into his chair, even the way in which his hands were waving about or hitting the armrest. You can glean a lot of information from tone, delivery, and body language.

I wanted him to know I was listening to him. So I leaned forward, maintained eye contact, and when I agreed, I nodded in the affirmative. When I disagreed, well, I remained still. As a coach, I often use my personal recovery experience to help my clients. But not this day, even though I had suffered a similar incident, it was not about me.

Eventually, at what seemed an appropriate moment, I spoke up. Using motivational interviewing techniques, I repeated some of the points my client had heatedly made. When unsure, I said, “Let me see if I have this right,” or words to that effect, and I would paraphrase a statement he had made. I asked open-ended questions beginning with the interrogatives, what, where, how, and when, and did not use the word why.

To the untrained ear, it was fifty minutes of listening to a high-volume tirade. But to me, much became apparent. He was frustrated with the slowness of his recovery. And tired of battling with his personal demons. He feared losing everything — his sobriety, his job, his girlfriend — as well as the calm provided by his drug of choice. He felt he couldn’t win. (Not winning for my client was never an option, coming from a high-pressured, always competitive family). He was convinced he’d run out of options. At least, he said, “when using he didn’t worry about winning, losing or anything else, for that matter.”

When his emotional fire had cooled, he popped the tab on a Diet Coke, took a good pull from it and said, “You know, no one listens to me. Thanks for listening to me.” Seeing the gratitude on his face was all I needed. The process of working out his feelings and expressing his thoughts was what he needed from his coach that day.

Lesson learned.