Tag Archives: recovery coach

“What to do with a client that may have addiction issues” Part 4 – Help the addict/executive build a plan for recovery

Posted on October 24, 2011 by Michael

Part 4
Help the addict/executive build a plan for recovery

Getting commitment from the client
After the first meeting and the story session, as homework assignment I hand out the New Client Questionnaire. I use one adapted from Jeffrey Auerbach’s book “Personal and Executive Coaching, The Complete Guide for Mental Health Professionals” . I like Dr Auerbach’s up front questions about the client’s goals for coaching: here are some examples.
1. What do you want to be certain to obtain from this coaching relationship?
2. What two steps could you take, immediately, that would help you move forward?
3. Are you ready to be coached?
4. Are you willing to stop or change my behaviors that are interfering with your progress in recovery

By introducing the client to Dr Auerbach’s questionnaire, they are able to begin to focus on what they want, which is the first concrete layer of the foundation of their recovery plan.

How does a coaching client build a plan for recovery?
In this phase I use the Grow Model, to further develop the client’s Recovery Plan. The Grow Model was developed by James Manktelow in 2005.

GROW is an acronym for:
1. Goals, establishing goals through the use of various instruments
2. Reality compare the reality of the situation
3. Options, explore the client’s options
4. Wrap up or Write the Recovery Plan (Donahue, 2007 & Manktelow, 2005)

The client has set the first few Goals, by completing Auerbach’s New Client Questionnaire.
Confronting Reality- Motivational interviewing and using the results from the Cognitive Distortions Survey are very important in this process. Discuss what is happening that makes the client not achieve their goals in the past. Break down the instances and ask:
1) When does this happen?
2) What effect does it have on you or others?
3) What is really stopping you?
4) Do you know anyone who has achieved their recovery goal?
5) What can you learn from them?

Discuss Options:
Brainstorm with the client on their options. Ask -don’t tell the client- about their options, this empowers them to ensure their choices. You can ask:
1. How can you move toward the goal?
2. What has worked in the past?
3. What could you do as a first step?
4. What else could you do?
5. What would happen if you did nothing?

Writing the Recovery Plan
In the next week, I encourage the client to begin to develop their recovery plan. Most often the client needs to be exposed to role models with long term recovery, people in their therapy groups, people in the 12 step meeting rooms, sober friends, or their sponsor. It is important for the coaching client to hear their stories and recognize the path they have taken on the road to recovery. I invite the coaching client to speak with these people to gather recovery plan information. Then we discuss what are their Recovery Plan goals are and why they are important?
1. First, we date the plan (Plans are meant to evolve and change, it is important for the client to see their progress)
2. Have the client name the change(s) they want to make (e.g. stay in college, avoid self-cutting, stay away from drugs and control over spending).
3. Where does this goal (stay away from drugs) fit in with their personal priorities at the moment?
4. What obstacles do they expect to meet?
5. How will they overcome them?
6. How committed are they to their Recovery Plan goals?
In developing a recovery plan a client will often ask the recovery coach for advice. During this process, I using motivational interviewing techniques, allowing the client to judge how appropriate the coach’s suggestions are for them. I offer not one, but a cluster of options which will allow the client to choose the suitable options for their recovery plan. For example a client often asks “What do you think I should do?”

I can respond by saying “Well, I see possibly three things you could do,
1. you can swear off alcohol completely starting today,
2. you can see if alcohol is a gateway drug or a trigger leading to your sexual acting-out by choosing not to drink when you are on a business trip,
3. you can continue drinking and acting out sexually with partners other than your spouse.”
Offering several solutions allows the client to see the options more clearly and decide which one or more options he/she has. Clients may bite off too much to chew, offer the client the opportunity to minimize the plan a bit so goals can be achieved. Lastly, establish some timelines.

Throughout coaching relationships, a client may regress to the beginning phases of this plan. Consistently, a coach must ask the difficult questions, reminding the client of their commitment, over and over again: “How committed are you to your recovery goals and your recovery plan? What do you want to achieve? What is really stopping you?”

During the creation of the Recovery Plan, the addict is looking “in”. This inward focus is very natural for the addict. Most addicts are so self centered that they have never looked outside of themselves to see “anything” less likely the consequences of their being buzzed for the last fifteen years. It is important to allow the addict to look in and then, to look out to see the consequences of his/her addiction.
In keeping with this concept, this third question:
Is there any collateral damage resulting from the addiction?
is usually asked when the ‘topic’ of collateral damage comes up. It will come up in the form of their teenager exploding at them, saying “You are never here!” or a co-worker appearing defensive during a meeting with the coaching client. Allowing the client to see consequences is the most important tool for the coach to use yet, the timing of this stage is never within our control. I assure you, the addict will see the consequences of their behavior, as coaches, we just have to wait for the opportunity or the ‘learning moment’

When the addict recognizes the consequences that are a result of their addiction(s), it is time to add onto their recovery plan, the coach invites the addict to look around at his/her surroundings, and ask:
What is the collateral damage resulting from your addiction?

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Why Everyone in Recovery Must Be Trauma-Informed – For Men’s Sake Part 2

Posted on September 8, 2011 by Michael

Guest Post By: Dan Griffin of Griffin Recovery Enterprises | dan@dangriffin.com | 612-701-5842 | http://www.dangriffin.com  | “Helping Men Recover From Addiction and Experience the Limitless Possibilities of Recovery”

I was recently invited to speak at an event in the same small Virginia town where I started my recovery journey and had the chance to be with some of the people with whom I first got sober 17 years ago. There were the guys I called the Fantastic Four: my first sponsor, my first best friend in sobriety, the man who taught me how to say “Hi” to other people, and the man who had what I wanted. And there were the incredible women—especially Mama T and all the adopted grandmas.

There were new stores, new restaurants, and new people in the recovery community. Still, it was surreal for me to be back there, because in many ways nothing had changed, and I felt like no time had passed since I’d walked down the streets, scared shitless of the world and of taking the first steps of this amazing journey, building the foundation for becoming the man I am today.

Much has happened in those years. We have all grown in different ways. One of the guys—who had 10 years of sobriety when I was starting my first year—was someone I really admired. He was not much older than I was, and he had been sober since he was seventeen (I was 22 and he was 27.) He rode a Harley and was covered in tattoos. He looked confident, cool, and he loved recovery.

As we stopped on the sidewalk getting ready to cross the road, Charlie quietly said, “You know, I’m really glad you said something about that abuse stuff and how it has affected your relationships.” Charlie is one of those guys who wants everything recovery has to offer him and is just as strong after 27 years of sobriety as he has ever been. And he is incredibly humble—because he is constantly open to the lessons that life has to teach him.

Charlie then told me what the last several years had brought up for him in his recovery: past sexual abuse. This was the kind of sexual abuse that boys have been raised to think is not only NOT abuse but something to strive for, fantasize about: a female teacher being sexual with him. Never mind the fact that he was in the fifth grade. It was still sexual abuse. Now his second marriage was falling apart as he realized he had fallen in love with a woman who was drowning in her own horrific trauma history—and she was taking him down with her.

Without going into detail, Charlie said something extremely powerful about the effect of trauma: “I knew about it. I had talked about in previous fifth steps. I was meeting with a counselor just a year ago when the marriage was going to hell, and as I started talking about it I just erupted into tears and was sobbing the whole time. Then I would call other guys and talk to them about it and do the same thing.” Charlie’s body and spirit knew the impact of pre – adolescent sexual abuse, even if his mind did not. In his mind, those experiences were bragging rights. In his soul, they were killing him. “Somebody has to talk about it. All of these men are dealing with something like that, and nobody is talking about it. I have been in recovery for 27 years. Twenty-seven fine years, and I never heard guys talking about sexual abuse or early childhood trauma.” That was my experience, as well. And many men who have done trauma work have probably had very similar experiences: despite the incredible prevalence of abuse in men’s lives, very few people talk about it, and it’s difficult to find an addiction curriculum that addresses recovery with these issues in mind. We estimate that at least 75% of men and women coming into treatment for alcohol and other drug addiction have experienced at least one form of abuse. For men, we know that sexual abuse is under reported, particularly amongst boys and adolescents. We know the line between discipline and physical abuse in childhood is still undefined and unclear to many men. It is also my firm belief that in our society the process of becoming a man is inherently traumatic. And, because sexual confusion, violence and anger are so inextricably woven throughout men’s experience, it is no surprise that so many of us are perplexed about what is appropriate and not appropriate and that we struggle to find a refuge to share our most vulnerable pain. Without a safe place—a very safe place—men are not going to talk about our abuse. And if we don’t talk about it, it won’t stop.

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This coach gets down to business

Posted on June 8, 2011 by Michael

Issue Date: Addiction Professional-January-February 2010,

This coach gets down to business

by Gary A. Enos, Editor
Dave Lindbeck recalls that when he was rising in the banking industry in his 20s, he was the sort of person who would say whatever occurred to him, no matter its impact on others. He says that during his active addiction, he gave friends and colleagues plenty of reason to abandon him, only to receive patience and understanding instead.
“Thank God I didn’t get what I deserved,” says Lindbeck, now 50. One positive influence he lacked, however, was someone with whom he could discuss his career goals and how to keep them in balance during his recovery journey. Later in his banking career he would find himself playing that advisory role for others who somehow would find their way to his office, and he discovered that this put him in a comfortable place.
Lindbeck would leave his job to start a career as a business and life coach, and soon that would evolve into a specialty assisting individuals in recovery as they pursue their professional goals in all types of fields.
“The majority of my folks happened to be on the road to recovery, so I figured, ‘Why not focus on that?’” says Lindbeck, whose InStep Coaching unit of his company (http://www.instepcoaching.com) assists individuals in recovery. “I would hear clients in recovery tell me, ‘You understand me on a level that others aren’t going to.’”
Importance of balance
The name “InStep Coaching” sounds like a reference to 12-Step recovery, but Lindbeck says that’s not where the name originated. “The reason for the name is that my head as a banker was going one way, but my heart was going another,” he explains. “I wanted to see how to keep those in step.”
Likewise, he assists his coaching clients in maintaining balance between their professional and personal lives. “They need to keep their business goals in balance with personal growth, not trading one for the other,” he says.
His approach with an individual client might depend greatly on the person’s stage of recovery. Someone who has been in recovery for more than five years is well on the road and probably needs to talk mainly about maintaining balance, while someone with less than a year of sobriety might still be running into conflicts with work colleagues who remember the recent past and expect their colleague to behave in a certain way.
The presence of an employee in recovery can present numerous challenges in a workplace. A boss might be fearful of what could happen and might be more prone to micromanage. The employee might lack the maturity to deal with certain situations and could adopt a victim mentality. Lindbeck can discuss these scenarios frankly with clients. “Companies are just a big dysfunctional family,” he says.
Lindbeck, who is based in the Phoenix area, conducts his coaching sessions over the phone. Sometimes he will work with someone for whom one conversation will suffice, while others have developed a long-term professional relationship with him. Even in these cases, however, he makes sure that while he serves as a resource the client doesn’t become too dependent on the relationship-and he clearly points out that he is not serving as a sponsor. His work emphasizes the client’s professional life and goals.
“Sometimes I can be coaching the owner of the company and the top employee, and some of the challenges in the company are between the two of them,” Lindbeck says.
Experiences in youth
Lindbeck describes a somewhat familiar scenario in discussing his own progression into harmful substance use, from starting to drink in a public park in junior high school to attending keg parties with football teammates in high school to discovering drugs in college. A couple of important events occurred in his 20s. First, his alcoholic father committed suicide. He says he became determined not to be like his father, although his substance use and some of the bad behavior to colleagues that accompanied it would continue for some time.
Then, in his mid-20s, he and a colleague took a new hire to lunch. When the moment came to order drinks, and Lindbeck prepared for business as usual, the new employee said he didn’t drink and discussed openly his addiction and recovery. It was an epiphany for Lindbeck, who saw what his life had become and observed someone who had taken another path.
The employee would end up taking him to his first 12-Step meeting. It has all led him to defining his own helping role, now in the unique position of helping executives who are in recovery. “I wish I had had somebody with whom to have these kinds of conversations,” Lindbeck says.
Addiction Professional 2010 January-February;8(1):40

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